Queer Places:
9 S Eaton Pl, London SW1W 9ES, UK
The Mill House, Dumbleton, Evesham WR11 7TR, UK
St Peters Churchyard
Dumbleton, Tewkesbury Borough, Gloucestershire, England
Henry Bolton Graham Eyres-Monsell, 2nd Viscount Monsell (21 November 1905[1][2]–1994[3]) served in the Intelligence Corps during the Second World War, reaching the rank of lieutenant colonel. He was mentioned in dispatches on 16 September 1943 and recommended for the MBE for his services to security during the planning stages of Operation Torch. No confirmation of this latter award has been found. However, he was awarded the United States Medal of Freedom with Bronze Palm.[4]
He was the son of Bolton Eyres Monsell and Caroline Mary Sybil Eyres. His father, who was Conservative Member of Parliament for Evesham from 1910 to 1935, served as Conservative Chief Whip from 1923 to 1929, and First Lord of the Admiralty from 1931 to 1936 and became Viscount Monsell in 1935. The second Lord Monsell had three sisters, one of whom, Joan was a photographer who married Patrick "Paddy" Leigh Fermor.
Graham Eyres Monsell was one of Robin Ironside's greatest loves. Graham lived most of his time in the country except when he went to London, Wednesdays and Thursdays, to his house in South Eaton Place in Belgravia. At one time he had taken a course in America to be a psychoanalyst, and had also reached near concert-pianist heights in Paris. His house was theatrically decorated with dark paintwork. On the hall-landing there was a golden table held up by a golden cherub, a couple of exquisite chairs and a huge vase of flowers on top of the piece, silhouetted against a window swathed in rich velvet curtains. The drawing room was a murky red, so dark you could hardly see, and the walls were packed with Robin’s pictures, including The Flaying of Marsyas, with Apollo preening himself in the background.
The Flaying of Marsyas
Exhibited 1957
Oil on canvas
105 x 150 cm
Private collection
He died in 1994 at The Mill House, Dumbleton, Worcestershire. A homosexual bachelor,[5] he died without issue. The title Viscount Monsell is now extinct. The Cotswolds family seat, Dumbleton Hall, is now a hotel.
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