Cliveden visitors in 2017. As home of Nancy Astor, Cliveden was the meeting place of the Cliveden Set of the 1920s and 30s—a group of political intellectuals. Later, during the early 1960s, it became the setting for key events of the notorious Profumo Affair. During the 1970s, it was occupied by Stanford University, which used it as an overseas campus. Today the house is leased by the National Trust as a five-star hotel. Cliveden means "valley among cliffs" and refers to the dene (valley) which cuts through part of the estate, east of the house. Cliveden has been spelled differently over
Secretary of State for the Colonies with its own Secretary of State. The new office was responsible for dealing with the Dominions together with a small number of other territories (most notably Southern Rhodesia). In the twenty years following the end of the Second World War, much of the British Empire was dismantled as its various territories gained independence. In consequence, the Colonial Office was merged in 1966 with the Commonwealth Relations Office (which until 1947 had been the Dominions Office) to form the Commonwealth Office, while ministerial responsibility was transferred to the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Affairs (previously known as the Secretary of State