Aristocrat owner of Knebworth Park, Baron Lytton-Cobbold, dies aged 84

When Noel Gallagher bellowed to the ocean of fans in front of him that they were all ‘making history’, the adoring crowd knew it was not a baseless boast.

Oasis secured their place in the Rock pantheon with their legendary gig at Knebworth in August 1996, at which they performed to 250,000 fans over the course of two nights. It was the biggest outdoor concert in a decade.

Now, the man who made that event and countless other gigs possible has died from Parkinson’s disease aged 84.

David Lytton-Cobbold was the aristocrat owner of the 15th century stately home Knebworth House and its 247-acre estate in Hertfordshire.

The eccentric hereditary peer, who was formally known as the 2nd Baron Cobbold, threw open his home to the public for photo shoots, medieval jousts and, most famously, a series of rock concerts from 1974 onwards that still continue to this day.

Some of the world’s most famous bands and musicians performed at the Knebworth Festival, including Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones,  Cliff Richard, Led Zeppelin, and – in what was their last concert with front man Freddie Mercury before his death – Queen.

But it was the 1996 event – at the height of the Britpop movement – that had the most impact on the music world and cemented Oasis’s status as one of world’s most popular bands.

Oasis went into the gig having outsold the Beatles, with 3.3million copies of their album (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? being bought, compared to 3.3million of Paul McCartney and John Lennon’s Sgt Pepper.

Along with what was then their only other album – Definitely Maybe – they had sold a combined 15million copies worldwide, helping to net the group £19million.

Every ticket for the Knebworth performance had sold out within eight hours, with children of the original Beatles fans piling in their droves to see Noel, his brother Liam and the rest of the Oasis troupe perform their top hits.

They included Wonderwall, The Masterplan and Don’t Look Back in Anger, all of which are now anthems of 1990s nostalgia.

Baron Lytton-Cobbold’s funeral yesterday came after his death on Monday.

A Hertfordshire local told the Daily Mail’s Richard Eden that his coffin was driven through Knebworth village whilst the aristocrat’s favourite album – Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon – was played.

Lytton Cobbold grew up at Knebworth House, which had been the home of his mother Hermione’s family since the 1490s.

After being educated at Eaton, the aristocrat added Lytton to his surname to pay homage to his mother’s family.

In 1969, Lytton-Cobbold took over the running of the then increasingly delapidated Knebworth from his father Kim, a former Governor of the Bank of England who was the first Baron Cobbold.

Lytton-Cobbold and his wife Chrissie, whom he had four children with, quickly threw open the home to the public to raise money to repair the property.

The couple introduced tourist attractions that included lion cubs, adventure playgrounds and even jousting tournaments.

Photos taken in 1977 showed the baron posing with his wife and children whilst sitting on a horse and holding a joust.

Knebworth House also became a filming location for TV productions and films, and went on to feature in the likes of Tim Burton’s 1988 iteration of Batman.

But it was Lytton-Cobbold’s decision to turn Knebworth into a music venue that was perhaps his most defining legacy.

In the first year of the Knebworth Festival, around 60,000 attended to see acts including Van Morrison and Tim Buckley.

In gigs that followed in subsequent years, dozens of other famous bands and solo musicians turned out to play in front of tens of thousands of fans.

In 1976, The Rolling Stones performed in front of an estimated 200,000 people, helping to put Knebworth on the map as one of the biggest concerts in the world.

In 1979, Led Zeppelin performed two gigs at Knebworth, their first performances in the UK since 1975.

The following year, the Beach Boys headlined the festival in what turned to be the band’s last performance before their original line-up broke up with the death of drummer Dennis Wilson in 1983.

In 1986, Queen performed what was their last concert with Freddie Mercury before he gave up live performances due to his failing health. The band’s next live performance would not come until after the singer’s death in 1991.

Other acts that performed at Knebworth down the years include Cliff Richard, Elton John, Pink Floyd, Eric Clapton and, more recently, Robbie Williams.

But it was Oasis’s two concerts at Knebworth in August 1996 that are the most famous.

Coming amid the band’s rivalry with fellow rock group Blur and the popularity of other acts such as the Spice Girls, the performances were the crowning glory of Britpop.

Incredibly, one in 20 Britons – or around 2.5million people – applied for tickets. In the end, it was a tenth of that number who got their hands on the precious slips of paper that they needed to get in to the venue.

With their two performances, the Gallagher brothers and other band members Paul ‘Guigsy’ McGuigan, Paul ‘Bonehead’ Arthurs, and Alan ‘Whitey’ White, confirmed their status as the most popular British band since The Beatles.

Noel recognised the enormity of what he was involved in when he strode on stage and told the rapturous crowd: ‘You’re making history, you lot’.

Speaking to the BBC on the 20th anniversary of the gig in 2016, Arthurs said:  ‘I’ll never forget the sheer scale of it. We flew in from London by helicopter and sort of circled the site. It landed behind the stage but we were like: “Let’s just do a once round and take it all in.” I’ll never forget it.’

The band’s support acts included the Manic Street Preachers and the Prodigy, who kept Oasis’s performers awake when they tried to take a nap during the band’s own set.

Around 125,000 voices per night listened to Oasis reel off Acquiesce, Supersonic and their other hits.

Big names who were among the crowd included Kate Moss, Chris Evand and Simply Red’s frontman Mick Hucknall.

The following day, the Daily Mail’s review proclaimed a ‘rock of all ages’ and said the Oasis ‘lads’ had become ‘legends’.

Speaking later to Uncut magazine, Noel said he realised that Knebworth was the peak of Oasis’s popularity.

‘I remember sitting there, at Knebworth, in the backstage area, and someone saying, “Well, what now?”, he said.

‘And I was like, “I couldn’t tell ya”.

‘And that was how I felt for a good couple of years afterwards. I really suffered. It’s like, what do you do when you’ve done everything? You kind of sink into boredom. Kind of directionless.’

Lytton-Cobbold’s son Henry, who was handed the Knebworth estate by his father after the older man’s retirement in 2002, told how he recalled Noel ‘wanting a bath’ after Oasis’s gigs.

He said the musician rang the doorbell of Knebworth House and asked Lytton-Cobbold if he could have one.

 ‘My dad, who was in the house at the time, showed him up to the Queen Elizabeth bathroom – and brought him a bottle of champagne,’ he said.

He then wrote in the Knebworth House guest book: ‘Noel Gallagher (clean!)’.

Gallagher’s band’s most famous gig was focused on in 2021 documentary Oasis Knebworth 1996.

Oasis finally split up in 2009, after Noel and Liam fell out and Arthurs and McGuigan and Arthurs had left in 1999.

Speaking last year after the documentary’s release, Noel who produced the film with his brother after the pair buried their long-running feud, said he was too ‘f***ing arrogant’ to enjoy the Knebworth concert.

‘I was so f***ing arrogant at the time that it didn’t really register. Genuinely. It’s only since Supersonic [Oasis’s 2016 documentary] and this film that you try and put yourself back in there and you get goosebumps,’ he told The Sun.

‘I’m not sure there are any bands who had that lift-off like we did. We were still in the same circumstances as our audience, almost. It is a snapshot of a band, of its zenith. It is a great moment for the band,’ he added.

‘Morning Glory hadn’t really taken off. We were loaded but we hadn’t really got paid. You know, the f***ing chimps hadn’t turned up and tigers and fur coats.’

Lytton-Cobbold inherited his father’s title in 1987 after the older man’s death. After handing over the home to his own Henry and his American wife Martha and moved into a gatehouse on his estate.

He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2008. His wife and their four children survive him.