“Last Saturday” Read’s Journal reported on July 15th, 1721, “their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales dined at Bellsize House,* attended by several persons of quality, where they were entertained with the diversion of hunting, and such other as the place afforded.” Triumphs such as this prompted some to refer to Howell as ‘the Welsh ambassador’, not always kindly. For it was not long before the quiet walks and placid fish-ponds became a little rowdy. On June 7th, 1722, St James’s Journal reported that “On Monday last the appearance of nobility and gentry at Bellsize was so great that they reckoned between three and four hundred coaches, at which time a wild deer was hunted down and killed in the park before the company, which gave near three hours diversion”.

Worse was to come. Howell partitioned the house into areas segregated by social status, and soon word got about that Belsize welcomed ‘the meaner sort’ too. The park was not segregated. There, genteel couples who had drunk nothing stronger than chocolate shared the lawns with gamblers flushed with wine, shouting themselves hoarse on races between Galloway ponies or teams of footmen in velveteens and silk fleshings.* If they strolled into the remoter woods, they stumbled over amorous couples keeping scandalous assignations in the bushes.