"There are three groups of people here: the Cheshire aristocracy who go back to the Norman Conquest; the farming communities around Malpas who own Cheshire dairies and make Cheshire cheese; and the people in the 'golden triangle' around Alderley Edge." New money, he says? Bring it on.There are many who agree with this welcoming approach. "People from that provincial centre called London always concentrate on the same side of Cheshire," says Patrick O'Neill. Gill Bennett, until recently chief historian at the Foreign Office, has found that Morton was "centre stage from the beginning" of one of Britain's worst political scandals.It was Morton who first received the letter, purporting to be from Grigori Zinoviev, president of the Comintern, the internal communist organisation, from an agent in Riga, Latvia. It called on British Communists to mobilise the Labour Party to support an Anglo-Soviet treaty.Ms Bennett hints that Morton helped to ensure the letter ended up in the Daily Mail, which ran the story under the headline: "Civil war plot by Socialists' masters: Moscow orders to our Reds; great plot disclosed".Although Ms Bennett believes it possible that Morton initially thought the letter was genuine, she has found he later covered up evidence that it was a fake."It might be that since he detested the Bolsheviks and the Labour government, he welcomed the chance to throw a spanner in the works," said Ms Bennett.
The most recent edition of the local bible, Cheshire Life, offers a map of the richest people in the area, but the editor bridles at vulgar expressions such as "new money". Windle Hill and Burton in Cheshire have more millionaires than almost anywhere else in the country, according to the Wilmslow Express: "Fifteen and 16 per cent respectively are worth seven figures in assets other than property." Only Mayfair has more millionaires per capita than Wilmslow. The railway, that brought wealthy "Cottontots" from Manchester and Birmingham and shipbuilders from Liverpool, did not arrive until 1842.But it is the latest influx of cash that has aristocratic tongues wagging. Footballers and Corrie actors may grab the headlines with their their mock Tudor, fake tan and flashy cars, but they are vastly outnumbered by the new construction and finance pounds pouring in from over the borders - Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool. Towns compete to buy the most Aston Martins or Mo?in Britain. In Prestbury High Street the Ferraris queue outside the White House Manor hotel, hoping to check out local fauna This is Dallas on coke (and lots of it).
But the real battle is between the old money and the new, and new is putting up an impressive fight.Was it always thus? Cheshire's oldest family - and by far the richest - are the Grosvenors. Better known now as the family of the Duke of Westminster, they have owned Eaton Hall, a grand, Gothic-style mansion (or "the largest petrol station in Cheshire", to some), since the reign of Henry VI It was a long time before the first new money moved in. Cheshire has always been posh - in my Wirral childhood, the peninsula's postcode change from Cheshire to Merseyside caused howls of indignation Now it is a festival of conspicuous consumption. We went to Brasingamen's nightclub, a meeting place for millionaires and their second and third wives.
