Dinner at Tredegar, New Year’s Eve, 1845
The Christmas festivities at Tredegar House, Monmouthshire in the first half of the nineteenth century lasted from Christmas Eve until after Twelfth Day. During this time the band of the Glamorgan militia was resident in the house and played for dinner and dancing every evening. Charles Morgan’s letters to the Marquis of Bute, lord lieutenant of Glamorgan, asking for the militia band are preserved among the Bute estate records. He requests the band for Christmas “as usual” in Dec. 1836 (NLW, Bute Papers, L 79/155), and “as has been for upwards of twenty years, am glad to say always giving satisfaction” in December 1845 (Bute L 90/289).
The New Year and Twelfth Day were the highlights of the festive season, and lists of the company invited to dine at Tredegar survive for the period 1842-1846. Horse races were held in the park during the day, including a Sir Charles Morgan Cup, a Ladies Cup and a Sweepstakes. The Tredegar race calendars survive for the period 1816-1873 (NLW, Tredegar Papers, P 4/1-2), and include side bets, such as the following from 1818: “Mr Morgan & Mr Lane bet Mr Hesketh ten guineas to five that he does not ride the buffalo from Tredegar House to the Lodge – won by Mr Hesketh”.
In 1839, the 6th of January fell on a Sunday, so Twelfth Day was kept on the Monday. Eighty-two sat down to a dinner including mock turtle soup, oyster patties, braised turkey, haunch of venison, partridges, wild duck curry, plum pudding and punch jelly.
Top table’s bill of fare, Twelfth Day 1839
At some point, the Twelfth Day cake would be produced for the assembled company, made to the same recipe from 1810 to 1846: 12 lbs sugar, 12 lbs butter, 14 lbs flour, 4 lbs almonds, 4 lbs orange & lemon peel, 30 lbs currants, 14 lbs eggs, 1 lb spice, 1 lb citron, 2 quarts brandy. A ninety four-pound cake.
Presumably people were still capable of movement after all that, as dinner was followed by a ball, a hot sit-down supper at one o’clock in the morning, and dancing until six in the morning.
Stephen Benham