Former workers at the Ely Lodge Estate in Fermanagh along with friends of the 6th Duke of Westminster, Gerald Grosvenor, attended his memorial service in Chester Cathedral on Monday. The 6th Duke of Westminster died of a heart attack in August.
The Duke, known as Gerald to his friends in Fermanagh, was 64. He was very fond of Ely Lodge and the area around Lower Lough Erne where he grew up and spoke affectionately about it. He married Natalia Phillips in 1978 and they had four children; Lady Tamara, Lady Edwina, Hugh and Lady Viola.
The Fermanagh people who were invited to attend the service joined senior members of the Royal Family in the 1,400-strong congregation. The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall, together with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, were among those attending.
Members of the Grosvenor family had attended a “quiet” private funeral service in the days after the Duke’s death but Monday’s invitation-only ceremony was a more public occasion.
The Grosvenor family were led by the 7th Duke of Westminster, Hugh, aged 25, who is Prince George’s youngest godfather. Royal family members also attended from overseas.
Employees and pensioners of the Grosvenor estate and representatives from the numerous charities the sixth Duke had connections with were also invited, as were military and civic representatives.
Among those in the congregation was Wesley Scott and his wife, Violet from Monea. Wesley was gamekeeper on the Ely Estate for 30 years for Gerald’s father, before the Grosvenor family moved to Eaton Hall in Cheshire.
“It was a lovely service with buglers playing. It was touching,” he said.
The Scotts along with other Fermanagh people, stayed over on Sunday night before making their way to a designated meeting point from where they were transported by coach to Chester Cathedral.
“Gerald was about with me from he was knee-high. He was always about with me, almost every day. We always kept in touch since. He was very down to earth,” said Wesley fondly.
“We met a lot of people at the service that we knew. Chester was littered with police and closed off to traffic.”
The Duke of Westminster governs the Grosvenor Estate which includes valuable property extending to 190 acres in London as well as land in Scotland and Spain.
Monday’s private service, which lasted for just over an hour, was led by the Dean of Chester, the Very Rev. Professor Gordon McPhate.
The music was led and supported by the Cathedral team with choristers from the Cathedral and Chester Male Voice Choir, bell ringers from local churches and the Manchester Brass Ensemble.
Readings were given by the 7th Duke of Westminster, who read his father’s favourite poem, If, by Rudyard Kipling; Richard Lyttleton, cousin of the late Duke, who read Revelation 21: 1-7 and The Duke of Cambridge, who read the Garter Prayer, part of the annual service for Knights of the Order of the Garter, with which the late Duke had been honoured.
There were also tributes from various charities and family friends.