In 1861, Henry Hope’s only child, Henrietta, married Henry Pelham-Clinton, the future sixth Duke of Newcastle, whose passion for horses and gambling had left him almost a quarter of a million pounds in debt. Henry Hope died in 1862; Deepdene eventually came into the possession of his grandson, Henrietta’s son Henry Francis Pelham-Clinton-Hope, the eighth Duke of Newcastle. Unfortunately, Deepdene’s new owner took after his father. He accumulated so much debt that, in order to pay the succession tax on his inheritance, he borrowed against his life interest, which he then had to mortgage off. Turning his back on Deepdene, he sailed to America, where he fell in love with a burlesque dancer and actress named May Yohé. They married in 1894, shortly before he was declared bankrupt.

In addition to Deepdene, the new Duke of Newcastle inherited from his grandfather the most precious of the family jewels, the Hope Diamond. Deep blue and 45.52 carats, it must have been among the most spellbinding objects to have been displayed at the Great Exhibition of London in 1851. Discovered in India in the 17th century, the jewel had been owned by Louis XIV and King George IV; Thomas Hope’s brother bought it after the latter’s death. Sale of the diamond was prohibited by a covenant, news which must have been bittersweet to glamorous May Yohé, who rather enjoyed wearing it, but more of a headache to the duke. He would spend the next seven years seeking the right to sell the jewel, which he was finally granted in 1901. By then, May Yohé had run off with another man. She and the duke were divorced in 1902.

Deepdene, meanwhile, was falling apart. It was not enough that the duke had already sold dozens of paintings off its walls. His debt was so great that he had no choice but to let the property. The Duchess of Marlborough soon moved in. Winston Churchill, her nephew by marriage, was quite taken with the “comfort and splendour” of the house, and visited often. On one occasion he found the future Edward VII waiting anxiously for him in the drawing-room. Churchill was late, but Edward would not start dinner until he got there. Without him, there would have been 13 at table.

The financial situation, however, continued to deteriorate. In 1917, Christie’s auctioned off the contents of most the rooms. The catalogue brims with Greek and Roman marbles, bronzes, fine furniture and two grand pianos. The sale is credited as contributing to the Regency revival of the 1920s. After the last lot, Deepdene itself was put up for sale. “The problem of what to do with the larger country houses would be less difficult of solution if all of them were as well placed in relation to Town, and as suitable in all respects for hotels, as Deepdene happens to be,” said The Times in 1920. It was becoming all too common a story.  

The architectural writer Ian Nairn called Deepdene’s a “disgraceful and depressing story”. In 1920 it became a hotel, advertised in the newspapers as “luxurious”, but in reality a notorious knocking shop.