Little piece of historical trivia for you. James Dyson, inventor of both the Dyson vacuum cleaner and that wheel barrow with the big ball as the wheel bought Dodington Park with the profits from the cleaner. An absolutely fabulous Palladian Mansion in some 300 acres of parkland, just north of Bath and just south of the M4…on the boundaries of the Duke of Somerset’s estate at Badminton.

The house previously belonged to the Codrington family, their fortune having come from breeding slaves. They used to own Barbuda (all or most of it, not sure) which they ran as a stud farm to provide slaves to the other West Indian islands…..the capital of the island (now part of the country of Antigua and Barbuda) is still called Codrington.  When I was out there many years ago I was told that no one knew what had happened to the Codrington family, that they seemed to have disappeared. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that I had served a pint to Sir Tim, the then head of the family, only a few weeks before in Bath.

(Note, I wouldn’t rely on these facts 100%. They are from an all too fallible memory.)

No, not very important, just a scrap of trivia.