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
Nancy Mitford in favour of the new arrival was a further source of outrage to Nancy, and throughout their childhood and into young adulthood she continued to vent her displeasure on her sister. In January 1909 a brother, Tom was born, and in June 1910 another sister, Diana, followed. That summer, to relieve the pressure on what was becoming an overcrowded nursery, Nancy attended the nearby Francis Holland School. The few months she spent there represented almost the whole of her formal schooling; in the autumn the family moved to a larger house in Victoria Road, Kensington, after which Nancy was educated