We are not kidding! Kate Middleton is descended from goat breeders (but very noble ones who kept a herd of goats of a rare breed in a Georgian mansion).
- Duchess of Cambridge reveals she is descended from a goat farmer
- Her goat-loving relatives are the former Lady Mayor of Leeds and sister Elizabeth.
- The unmarried sisters were cousins to Kate’s paternal great-grandmother Olive Lupton and sister Ann.
- They regularly visited the Beechwood estate in Roundhay, where Elizabeth and her sister herded a herd of rare goats.
It was an unusual confession for a future queen. During an official visit last week to a farm near the Welsh town of Abergavenny, Duchess of Cambridge mentioned a little-known fragment about her pedigree – she comes from a goat breeder.
“I was researching my ancestry and there was someone out there who raised rare breeds of goats,” she said during a tour of the Pant farm in Llanwetherin, which supplies goat milk from its herd to a local cheese maker. “I have to find out who it was. This was right after the First World War.
Now, Mail on Sunday has done the work for Kate—and today we can show that she was indeed descended from a goat breeder—although her ancestors were unlikely to be laborers in the fields.
In fact, her goat-loving relatives are the former Lady Mayor of Leeds, Dr Eleanor Lupton, and her sister Elizabeth, who kept a herd of rare breed goats at Beechwood, a Georgian mansion in Roundhay, seven miles north of Leeds.
Now The Mail on Sunday has done all the work for Kate – and today we can show that she really came from a goat breeder, although her ancestors were hardly toilers in the fields.
In fact, her goat-loving relatives are the former Lady Mayor of Leeds, Dr Eleanor Lupton, and her sister Elizabeth, who kept a herd of rare breed goats at Beechwood, a Georgian mansion in Roundhay, seven miles north of Leeds. Pictured: Eleanor Lupton and Princess Mary
The unmarried sisters were cousins to Kate’s paternal great-grandmother Olive Lupton and her sister Anna. Olive and her children, including Kate’s grandfather Peter Middleton, regularly visited the Beechwood estate and its home farm with the famous rare goat breed.
Eleanor, who inherited Beechwood Manor after all three Olive Middleton brothers died in World War I, shared a love of animal husbandry with her friend Princess Mary, the only daughter of King George V and Queen Mary and the current Queen’s aunt. who lived nearby at Harewood Manor with her husband Henry Lascelles, 6th Earl of Harewood.
Historian Michael Reid said, “Kate is absolutely connected to goat breeders. Agriculture and land are in her blood. Her great-grandmother Olive Middleton’s cousins received awards from the Royal Agricultural Society for their experience in breeding rare goats between the world wars.”
The family home on Beechwood Manor was central to the life of the Lupton and Middleton clan after Olive Lupton married Kate’s great-grandfather, lawyer Richard Noel Middleton.
Much of the Lupton family fortune ended up in a trust fund for Olive’s four children and their descendants, which paid for the private education of Kate and her siblings Pippa and James.
In his family memoir The Next Generation, Kate’s grandfather Peter Middleton wrote: “We were sort of in awe of our cousins Eleanor and Bessie. [Elizabeth].
“Visits to them in Beechwood were always a rather special occasion, before which my mother carefully checked for dirt behind her ears, clean handkerchiefs, etc.
“An even bigger challenge was the annual Beechwood party, during which I still remember the horrors of trying to tie a black bow tie for my first tuxedo. Nor will I forget my fear of Aunt Eleanor and Bessie, Lady Bryce.
The tragedy of three brothers killed during the First World War meant that Kate’s great-grandmother Olive and her spinster sister Anne shared their father’s £70,538 inheritance, equivalent to £5 million today.
Much of the Lupton family fortune ended up in a trust fund for Olive’s four children and their descendants, which paid for the private education of Kate and her siblings Pippa and James.
However, the young Middletons did not inherit the goat herd, which was given to another farmer after Eleanor died in 1979 at the age of 92.