A WHITCHURCH Herald reader has shared a fascinating first hand account of the day one of the most powerful women in Europe arrived at Wrenbury Railway Station.
Fans of the hit Netflix show, The Empress, need no introduction to Empress Elisabeth, the wife of Franz Joseph of Austria, whose family was beset by great tragedy and culminated in her own assassination in 1898.
She had outlived her daughter who died in infancy, her son who committed murder and suicide and her sister who died in a fire.
She had found her haven at Combermere Abbey near Whitchurch where she arrived in 1881.
The Empress, known as Sisi, certainly left her mark with no expense spared as work on the abbey, stables and railway station at Wrenbury with the development of rooms at the latter costing £1.5m.
She arrived on February 20, 1881 accompanied by an entourage of more than 80 staff which included the Prince Liechtenstein.
Herald reader Ken Harding's grandfather Charles had been a child at the time and among those to greet her at Wrenbury Station.
His grandson shared the written account of his ancestor.
Charles wrote: "The Empress of Austria came to Combermere Abbey for the hunting season.
"A lot of the counties' ladies in waiting occupied the Salamanca Hotel and great preparations were made for her arrival. New platforms and waiting rooms were built and a train was kept in readiness with a Royal saloon attached.
"On Her Majesty's arrival at Wrenbury the station was guarded by detectives but I sneaked through the office to the platform.'
Remarkably the young man had come face to face with Sisi.
He wrote: "As she approached I lifted my cap and the Empress bowed to me. This is not fiction."
Sisi remained at the abbey for a year and she called it the 'most romantic place in Europe.'
She departed Combermere in 1882 and returned to Vienna after being hosted at Windsor Castle by Queen Victoria.
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In 1898 Sisi had been walking in Geneva in Switzerland when an assassin recognised her having failed to take out his intended target, the Duke of Orleans, and instead made the Empress his victim.
It would of course not be the last assassination to be suffered by the Hapsburg family and on June 28 1914, the assassination of her nephew Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo led to World War I.
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