Scandal................was Liz Taylor born in Cheshire

A news story has just broken in the UK about the lovely village of Hartford in Cheshire where my son was married a week ago.

This story was in the national newspapers this morning...Mark Bevan the local historian who is at the centre of this story is an old friend of mine and appeared on the local television news this evening

Although it has always been said that the film star was brought into the world at her parents’ North London home, claims have emerged that she was actually born at a wild party in Cheshire – and an elaborate cover-up ensued to hide a web of scandalous behaviour....Birth place: Elizabeth Taylor may have been born at a swingers' party in Cheshire it has been claimed....The actress, who died last week at the age of 79, was the daughter of a fashionable young American couple living in England in the 1930s.

Elizabeth Taylors parents

Art dealer Francis Taylor, and his wife Sara, who had been an actress before she married and retired from the stage, regularly attended disreputable gatherings in the village of Hartford, it is alleged. And according to the grandson of a woman who mixed with the wealthy families who lived in the village, after one such party, the baby arrived unexpectedly in the middle of the night.

Such was her parents’ concern that they should cover up where they had been, the couple rushed back south to register her birth in London.

The source’s grandmother, who worked at local houses in the 1920s and 30s, even suggested that the switch had been part of a cover-up over Dame Elizabeth’s paternity – and that her real father was actually the millionaire Conservative MP Victor Cazalet, who became her godfather.

The allegations were made by a 75-year-old farmer, who set them down in a letter to local historian Mark Bevan last year...‘They were the swingers of their day. Her mother was suspected of affairs and her father was a practising homosexual.‘...As it was illegal at the time he couldn’t risk being caught in London, so they came up to Hartford in a large Buick car which wealthy Victor Cazalet bought for them.’
Several executives at the chemical firm ICI are thought to have had houses in the village, which is near Northwich.Dame Elizabeth’s mother Sara is said to have attended a party at one while heavily pregnant in February 1932..... The letter added: ‘Elizabeth was born unexpectedly in the night.

Her birthplace was registered as the couple’s home at the time, No 8, Wildwood Road, Golders Green.

Mr Bevan, a former local newspaper editor, admits that he has found no more documentary evidence linking Dame Elizabeth with Hartford but hopes other locals will be able to corroborate the account.
‘I have no reason to doubt the story’s authenticity,’ he said. ‘When this came up I was astonished by it – it’s an astonishing gem.’....He does not know at which house the actress was said to have been born, but suspects it was in an exclusive enclave that is called The Crescent.

Pat Hatfield, from Hartford Civic Society, said: ‘I haven’t heard anything about Elizabeth Taylor being born in Hartford before, but I’m fascinated and shall do some research.’

So a lovely little Cheshire village has made the national news... another beautiful film star definitely born in the village was the actress Ann Todd.