The Kardashians meets Downton Abbey’s Crawley sisters – the UK’s ‘bad Manners girls’ hang out with British royals, date pop stars and party all night in London
The Manners sisters’ Belvoir Castle home was featured in The Crown and The Da Vinci Code – now however Ladies Violet, Alice and Eliza prefer the bright lights of London town, where their Fulham five-bed hosts epic parties attended by Princess Diana’s niece Lady Kitty Spencer, Bryan Ferry’s kids and former UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s son Gus
Socialites, Instagram sensations and business women, Lady Violet, 27, Lady Alice, 25, and Lady Eliza, 23, are the daughters of the 11th Duke and Duchess of Rutland – David Manners and Emma Watkins. Their ancestral home is Belvoir Castle in Leicestershire where they grew up surrounded by priceless art, palatial staterooms, towers, turrets and 15,000 acres (6,070 hectares) of land.
It took seven minutes fast-walking to get from her bedroom to the front door – passing through vast chambers decorated with enough menacing swords, muskets and cannons to wage any battle – Lady Violet told Vanity Fair in 2017. She also related a story about when she and her sisters were young, they liked to hide under tables and jump out to scare the tourists.
Although not royal, the family are landed gentry nobility whose family line dates back to the Norman conquest and the Battle of Hastings in 1066, and there has been a castle on this site since that time. Although the castle has been rebuilt several times, the current one which dates back to the 1700s, has 356 rooms and the family live in a corner of it, and the rest is open to the public.
The castle is a popular setting for television and film productions, and has been featured in The Crown, The Da Vinci Code, Victoria and Abdul and The Young Victoria.