Marriage of misery dress is reborn

May 23 2009 by Sara Nichol, The Journal

IT ONCE represented a marriage of misery for an 18th century North East countess. Now the wedding dress of wealthy Mary Eleanor Bowes, heiress of Gibside Hall, in Rowlands Gill, Gateshead, has been reborn.

She wore the glamorous gown for her marriage to John Lyon, the ninth Earl of Strathmore, in 1767. It cost £13,000 – a vast sum at the time and the equivalent of more than £1m in today’s money.

The gown was replicated by a Newcastle College student and is on show at the chapel in Gibside as part of a textile exhibition. The countess was buried in the dress when she died in 1800, but Jerri Gibbons used extensive research and historical facts to recreate the masterpiece.

It was the gown worn by Mary Bowes, the Countess of Strathmore, as she embarked on an unhappy marriage to the earl and eventually on to a life of scandal, affairs, abuse and divorce, which hit the headlines back in their day.

Then following her unhappy marriage to Lyon, who died in 1776, the countess embarked on an affair before being tricked into marrying Andrew Robinson Stoney, a tyrant who imprisoned her and held her at gunpoint.

Jerri, of Chopwell, Gateshead, who recreated the dress as part of her BA degree in Textiles Creative Practice, said she had been inspired by the inspirational life of the countess.

She said: "I’m a local girl so I’ve always known the history of Gibside.