Her death was announced on the official Instagram account of Glanusk Estate, the 18,000-acre family seat in in the Brecon Beacons National Park.
‘We are devastated to lose our mother,’ the family said in the statement. ‘She was an inspiration to us all, and to many people she met over her years of service to Wales, and the countless organisations and institutions she supported. A country girl at heart, she has left an indelible legacy at Glanusk, the wider countryside and beyond.’
Born in 1943, Elizabeth Shân Josephine Bailey was the only child of Wilfred Bailey, 3rd Baron Glanusk, and his second wife, Margaret Shoubridge. She was just five years old when her father died in 1948. Having no male heir, he was succeeded in the peerage by a male cousin. However he took the decision to leave his ancestral seat to his daughter, who would go on to become a prominent figure in Welsh public life.
Accompanying Queen Elizabeth II on a visit to Glanusk Estate for the ‘Diamonds in the Park’ in April 2012
Chris Jackson/Getty Images
Growing up, Shân was instilled with an understanding of the work needed to keep the estate running. ‘From a really early age I was encouraged by everyone on the estate to be able to put my hand to whatever I could, whether that be searching for eggs, picking raspberries or sitting in the tractor,’ she recalled of her ‘wonderful’ childhood in a 2006 BBC documentary about her life. Refreshingly down-to-earth, Shân was also filmed carrying out chores at the country pile, from cleaning to gutters to fixing the electrics and plucking pheasants.
Aged 12, Shân was sent to a boarding school in Sussex. ‘[My mother] sent me to the furthest-away boarding school she could find in Sussex so that I couldn’t run away. That was awful. I was so homesick,’ she recalled. ‘I can remember literally standing in Abergavenny station waiting to go back to school with the tears streaming down my face.’