Catherine Bailey

Wentworth, today, is a crumbling and forgotten palace in Yorkshire. Yet just 100 years ago it was the ancestral pile of the Fitzwilliams – an aristocratic clan whose home and life were fuelled by coal mining. This is the story of their spectacular decline and a class war that literally ripped apart the local landscape.

John 9th Duke of Rutland, ended his days, virtually alone, lying on a makeshift bed in the servants' quarters of his home, Belvoir Castle. After his death, his son and heir, Charles, ordered that the rooms be locked up; they remained untouched for sixty years. What lay behind this extraordinary set of circumstances?