ONWARD AND UPWARD WITH THE ARTS: THE MERRY WIDOW

The ninety-year-old aristocrat known for her cheeky accounts of the British élite.

- REBECCA MEAD

Holkham Hall, an austere eighteenth-century sandstone mansion that is among the most spectacularly situated of England's stately homes, was built just south of the dune-edged beaches of Norfolk, in a park that extends for three thousand acres and encompasses woodland, rolling greensward, and an ornamental lake. Commissioned by a wealthy landowner named Thomas Coke, the house was designed according to strict Palladian principles, and consists of four symmetrical wings arranged around a central core, which contains a long gallery. In this space, Coke-who was ennobled as the Earl of Leicester in 1744, and whose name, like that of his descendants, is pronounced "cook"-displayed acquisitions from his Grand Tour, including a statue of Diana that had reputedly once belonged to Cicero.