A priceless piece of Eltham Palace’s glamorous past has been rescued – from a skip. The golden 1930s telephone is the only surviving example of five commissioned by Eltham Palace’s eccentric former owners, Virginia and Stephen Cortauld. It was thrown out when the Cortaulds left the palace in 1944 but was later found among rubbish and has now been donated to English Heritage, which runs the palace.
Dr Olivia Fryman, English Heritage’s curator of collections and interiors expressed her pleasure that the antique telephone had finally “found its way home” saying that it “…gives a real sense of the glamour and modernity of the interiors [at the palace] and the couple’s extravagant lifestyle.”
