At his trial by peers it was claimed that Henry Skipwith arrived at Fonthill Gifford in 1621 and within a few years was so close to the Earl that he sat at the family table and was to be addressed as “Mister” by the servants.
He often stated that Vathek was written as an emotional response to “the events that happened at Fonthill at Christmas 1781,” and that it took him two days and a night, or three days and two nights.
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Fonthill Abbey — also known as Beckford's Folly — was a large Gothic revival country house built around the turn of the 18th century at Fonthill Gifford in Wiltshire, England, at the direction of William Thomas Beckford and architect James Wyatt.