The last of the famous Mitford sisters, the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire, has died at the age of 94, her son has said.

Deborah Vivien Cavendish and her siblings moved in the same circles as Winston Churchill, John F Kennedy, Adolf Hitler and Evelyn Waugh and epitomised a privileged and glamorous aristocratic life that no longer exists.

The Dowager, know as Debo to family, probably led the most normal life out of the famous sisters - Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity and Jessica - who were the It girls of their day.

She married Andrew Cavendish, who succeeded his father as 11th Duke of Devonshire in 1950, and devoted her life to running the Chatsworth estate.

The Dowager confessed to having a love for the music of Elvis, enjoyed keeping chickens and was keenly interested in art.

At the other end of the spectrum was her sister Diana, who left her first husband and married the founder of the British Union of Fascists Oswald Mosley, in a civil ceremony in Joseph Goebbels' drawing room in Berlin in 1936. Hitler was the only other guest.

A spokeswoman for Chatsworth House, the family seat of the Devonshires, said funeral arrangements would be made shortly.