An archive relating to a once famous Suffolk dynasty comes for sale at Sworders in Stansted Mountfitchet on September 10-11. The diaries, journals and letters of Lady Ann Cullum (1807-75) of Hardwick House near Bury St Edmunds form part of a Fine Interiors sale.

Extracted from Antiques Trade Gazette | Roland Arkell

The daughter of John Flood of Farmley, Kilkenny, Miss Ann Lloyd was educated in England at Mrs Schnell’s School of Young Ladies. It was while on a Grand Tour with her Aunt Elizabeth in 1831 that she met the Rev Sir Thomas Cullum (1777-1855), 8th Baronet of Hardwick.

Included in the sale are Ann’s leather-bound travel journals from the 1830s (four sojourns estimated at £300-500 each) plus an album of around 160 autograph letters sent to the Callum family in the 18th and 19th centuries pitched at £300-500. Royalty, statesmen, military leaders and men and women of letters, arts and science are among the correspondents.

Lady Cullum’s diaries in three volumes from 1854-65 (estimate £300-500) describe her meetings with many similar luminaries.

Following regular meetings in London with the historical writer and poet Agnes Strickland she waspishly observed: “Miss S is very prosy and always talking of herself and her books – she is an extraordinary-looking woman, very well-meaning but most tiresome companion. She has a high opinion of her celebrity which almost amounts to mania.”

The Cullum family lived at Hardwick House for almost three centuries before the estate was sold when the last family member died without direct heir in 1926.