THE Merchant-Ivory film The Remains of the Day is set partly in the

thirties in a country house which plays host to supporters of German

appeasement and whose setting bears a striking resemblance to Cliveden,

the Astors' country seat in Berkshire.

Cliveden (it rhymes with ''lived in'') has had a chequered history.

More than 30 years ago John Profumo met Christine Keeler there and began

the Tory sex scandal by with all others are judged.

Between the wars Nancy Astor gathered an exotic mix of English

aristocracy, politicians and celebrities. The Cliveden Set attracted,

among others, the German ambassador Von Ribbentrop, Lothian Lothian,

Charlie Chaplin, Lloyd George, George Bernard Shaw, Rudyard Kipling and

Lawrence of Arabia. Chaplin wrote in his autobiography: ''Lady Astor

would have made a wonderful actress.''

According to the writer Angela Lambert, the young people invited to

Cliveden were ''usually the most vivacious and intelligent of their age

group''. Some 30 household servants pampered the regular weekend guests

who would take out boats on the river, or play tennis.

In her entry for December 13, 1937, diarist Beatrice Webb wrote about

''the Cliveden Coterie'' describing members as ''die-hard pro-German''.

The New York Times said that the Cliveden Set was ''widely regarded as

the most influential of Germany's sympathisers''. According to David

Sinclair, in his book Dynasty: The Astors and their Time, the Set was

innocent of the charge of ''conniving in the rise of the Nazi's Reich.''

In the House of Commons, however, Nancy was once referred to as ''the

honourable member for Berlin''.

Nancy wrote to the papers denying that any sinister group met at

Cliveden ''in the interests of fascism or anything else'' although she

did admit to entertaining people of many religious and political creeds.

When Labour MP Tom Driberg made mention of the Set he was promptly

invited to lunch by Nancy Astor to be dissuaded of such a Set's

existence.

''There is no doubt that a Cliveden Set did exist in the sense that

the phrase represents a set of assumptions and presumptions to which the

Astors and their friends were amongst the most important subscribers,''

writes David Sinclair. According to Bernard Shaw's biographer, Michael

Holroyd, Nancy ''created a fantasy kingdom [at Cliveden] that

surrendered to reality only under extreme pressure''.

Nancy finally abandoned her stance on appeasement but she never saw

eye-to-eye with Winston Churchill. She once told him: ''If I was married

to you I would put poison in your coffee.'' Churchill's immortal reply

was: ''Nancy, if I was married to you I'd drink it!''

Nancy was a celebrated eccentric, a teetotaller, she converted to

Christian Science and visited the USSR in 1931. She was greatly

enamoured of the company of George Bernard Shaw who called Nancy ''a

volcano''. The daughter of a wealthy American family (her sister was

immortalised in popular cartoons as The Gibson Girl), Nancy married the

millionaire Waldorf Astor in 1906. In 1919 she became Britain's first

woman MP to take her seat.

THE Astors traced their name back to John Jacob Astor who once owned

almost all of Manhattan. The family moved on from property and

publishing to hotels. New Yorks' Waldorf Astoria was opened in 1893.

Among its innovations were breakfast in bed and the Waldorf Salad.

Nancy feared and hated war but she could do nothing to stop the Second

World War. After the war the Cliveden Set transmogrified. Bill Astor,

Nancy's son, loved to entertain at Cliveden although it was then owned

by the National Trust. His wife Bronwen was Balmain's principal model.

The hospitable Bill Astor had guests staying most weekends for house

parties.

Minister for War John Profumo was one such guest who met a naked

19-year-old model, Christine Keeler, at Cliveden's walled swimming pool

one hot June in 1961. It was a fateful meeting that was to put Profumo

and Keeler's names in the history books. The link came through Stephen

Ward, a society osteopath, who had a weekend cottage in the grounds.

Ward introduced Lord Astor and his friends to a variety of pretty girls.

In court Mandy Rice-Davies mentioned Lord Astor by name and when she

was asked if she knew that Astor had told the police that her

allegations about him were untrue she famously replied: ''He would,

wouldn't he!'' After the trial of Stephen Ward, Bill Astor was

criticised for not coming forward to defend his friend.

Nancy lived to see the family named dragged through the dirt. Bill

Astor's reputation was severely damaged in the scandal although he was

cleared of any wrongdoing. The sordid case took its toll and he died in

1966 of a heart attack. He was 58. His wife said that the Profumo Affair

was partly to blame. His estate was valued at #1m in the UK and $2m in

America. It was a paltry amount compared with previous Astor wills; the

dynasty's founder left $20m.

Cliveden has a beautiful setting by the Thames amid woods and gardens.

Nancy Astor sent blooms up from Cliveden for her nieces' coming-out

balls. Now Cliveden is a member of the Small Luxury Hotels of the World

network.

In 1991 Emma Thomson and Kenneth Branagh were married at Cliveden in a

fabulously lavish #30,000 wedding. Conference delegates can dine at the

original Astor dining table, up to 28 at a time. To stay at Cliveden

costs around #195 per guest, per night.

The rooms and suites have names like Mountbatten, Shrewsbury and

Grenfell (Joyce Grenfell was Nancy Astor's niece and she spent her

childhood Christmases at Cliveden). But there is no Keeler Cocktail Bar,

although the walls of Waldo's, one of Cliveden's restaurants, now sport

some Profumo Affair portraits by Stephen Ward (they were once relegated

to one of the gentlemen's lavatories).

* Cliveden, Taplow, Berkshire (Tel: 0628-668561). You can look round

the grounds at certain times of the year and for two hours on Thursday

and Sunday non-residents can see inside one of the wings of the house.

But you can't drop in for afternoon tea.