Alvilde Chaplin

Alvilde Lees-Milne
Born	August 13, 1909 London, United Kingdom
Died	1994 Badminton, United Kingdom
Resting place	ashes scattered over Essex House, Haye's Lane, Badminton, South Gloucestershire GL9 1DD, United Kingdom

Alvilde Lees-Milne (née Bridges; formerly Viscountess Chaplin) (1909–1994) was a British gardening and landscape expert.

Born in 1909, she was the daughter of the Governor of South Australia (1922–27) Lt.-Gen. Sir (George) Tom Molesworth Bridges by his wife Janet Florence Menzies, and was the great-niece of the poet laureate (1913–30), Robert Bridges.

She met James Lees-Milne, who became her second husband, during World War II while she was engaged in an affair with the arts patron Winnaretta de Polignac. By 1949 they were in love, but from the outset the relationship was not without complications. She had been married since 1933 to Anthony Freskin Charles Hamby Chaplin, who would in 1949 become the 3rd Viscount Chaplin, and had one daughter, (Oenone) Clarissa, born in 1934. At one point the Chaplins, Lees-Milne, and Anthony Chaplin's girlfriend Hon. Rosemary Lyttelton all lived in the same house. Lord and Lady Chaplin divorced in 1950, whereupon the viscount married Rosemary Lyttleton (by whom he later had two daughters).

She and Lees-Milne were candid with each other about their true sexual nature, and they did not generally hide their affairs from one another. During the 1930s James Lees-Milne had been the lover of Harold Nicolson, husband of the writer Vita Sackville-West who was herself noted for her high-profile lesbian affairs. Both Harold and Vita acted as witnesses at the Lees-Milnes' wedding (also present was James' former lover the composer Lennox Berkeley and Berkeley's wife Freda). Vita Sackville-West's former lover Violet Trefusis had been the long-term lover of Princess de Polignac, and in turn in the 1950s Sackville-West became involved in a love affair with Alvilde Lees-Milne (who tried to conceal the fact from her husband).

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