Ringwood, Avon Castle 1891 - Francis Frith - Photo!
Earl of Egmont was a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It became extinct with the death of the twelfth earl in 2011.
The Castle itself was converted into flats in 1949/50, most now privately owned. (1949 - Planning permission was granted for the conversion of the Castle into nine self contained flats.)
Lord Belmont in Northern Ireland: Lohort Castle
The11th Earl of Egmont, better known in Alberta as Frederick Perceval, on his land near Priddis, circa 1948 Calgary Herald Archives.
The Stampede’s fascination with British nobility was evident in 1932 when Frederick Perceval, 11th Earl of Egmont was tapped to present the prizes at the livestock revue and children’s show.
Known as the “cowboy earl” Perceval, 18, inherited the title, an estate worth an estimated $1M, historic Avon Castle and a seat in the British House of Lords. The earl chose ranching in Alberta instead.
Perceval purchased 275 hectares of land and built a home outside Calgary, at what is now Macleod Trail and Willow Park Drive. As the city grew, the land was sold and Egmont bought the 2,000-hectare Two Dot Ranch near Nanton. He lived there until his death at age 87 in December 2001.
He loved the ranching life, horseback riding and motorcycles. He was a competitor at the Calgary Stampede, taking part in the chuckwagon races and the wild cow milking contest.
As a young man, he was quoted as saying,“I’d sooner stay in Priddis than go anywhere in the world.”
The Earl of Egmont - Telegraph
THE 11th EARL OF EGMONT, who has died in Alberta aged 87, became one of the Peerage's most romantic figures at the age of 15 when he reluctantly moved from a two-room prairie shack to Avon Castle, Hampshire, on his father's inheritance of the earldom.
Members of a junior branch of the Perceval family which had emigrated to Iowa and then Alberta in the late 19th century, the boy and his widowed father "bached" together on a 600-acre ranch at Priddis, near Calgary.
