Louisa Beresford, Marchioness of Waterford

Who was Louisa Beresford, Marchioness of Waterford?

Louisa Anne Beresford, Marchioness of Waterford was a Pre-Raphaelite watercolourist and philanthropist. She was the wife of Henry Beresford, 3rd Marquess of Waterford, younger sister of Charlotte, Countess Canning, daughter of Charles Stuart, 1st Baron Stuart de Rothesay and the former Lady Elizabeth Margaret Yorke. The family home was at Highcliffe Castle, and had been in Stuart possession since about 1770 when Louisa's great-grandfather, John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, while out botanising, discovered the cliff-top viewsite overlooking Christchurch Bay, and commissioned the architect Robert Adam, to design High Cliff, a sumptuous Georgian mansion, with grounds laid out by Capability Brown.

His fourth son, Lieutenant-General Sir Charles Stuart, inherited High Cliff, but landslips virtually destroyed the house, and he sold the greater part of the estate. Years later Louisa's father who had had a long and distinguished career, been honoured with a knighthood, and raised to the peerage by George IV in 1828, bought back the land and between 1831 and 1835 built the house that became known as Highcliffe Castle, and which has been described as "the most important remaining example of the Romantic Picturesque style of architecture."