Asthall Manor Park. The youngest of the Mitford sisters Deborah, later Duchess of Devonshire, was born at Asthall in 1920. Her sister Diana had an appendectomy on the spare-bedroom table. The Mitfords were great socialites, and Asthall hosted frequent hunting and shooting weekend parties, regular guests included Clementine Churchill, Frederick Lindemann and Walter Sickert. Nancy Mitford's fictional Alconleigh in "The Pursuit of Love" is based largely on Asthall, and family life there is described in Jessica Mitford's autobiographical "Hons and Rebels". Redesdale had never planned to make Asthall Manor a permanent home, and in 1926 the family moved into nearby Swinbrook House
Unity Mitford forward among the sisters and in the family, she decided that she was going to form a personality against everything". It has been speculated that Unity turned to Nazism as a way to distinguish herself within the family. As Dalley states: "I think the desire to shock was very important, it was the way that she made herself special. When she discovered Nazism and discovered that it was a fantastic opportunity to shock everybody in England she’d discovered the best tease of all." Her younger sister, Jessica, with whom she shared a bedroom, was a dedicated communist. The two drew