A duchess who has a stuffed hamster on her coffee table, a duchess who is a farmer’s daughter, a duchess who lost her son when he was just 22, and our own ‘romantic’ Duchess of St Albans who was wooed by her duke with opera music.

These are just some of the strange and wonderful stories uncovered by author Jane Dismore as she journeyed across the country and back through history to research her new book, which she believes is the first publication of its kind.

Duchesses Living in 21st Century Britain chronicles ten contemporary aristocratic women and ten of their predecessors and was inspired by Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge.

“I looked at this very 21st Century woman and thought duchess sounded such a historical, old title and wondered what it means to be a duchess today,” says the St Albans writer, who is a former English teacher, freelance magazine writer, manager of yachts and a solicitor, and who gave up work last year to write full-time.

Jane says tracking down the women was a difficult task as there are only 22 non-royal, duchesses alive today and, unsurprisingly, they are not listed in the phone book.

“You can google the dukes and find out a bit, but there is almost nothing about their wives,” say Jane, who refers to the ten women she managed to get on board as “my duchesses”.

“The Duchess of Norfolk turned me down and I wasn’t surprised, as they are going through a separation.

“A couple of others said no as well, which was a shame, but I got a lot to say yes and I was surprised I got ten because they are so secretive.

“With some of them it was like trying to drag blood from a stone, but when they did eventually agree they were very forthcoming.

“Although one duchess did want to back out as I think she thought she’d said too much, but I managed to calm her down.”

Along the way Jane travelled to some stunning stately homes, getting to see rooms usually hidden from the public eye, but she also met one duchess at a train station and had a surreal moment watching the Duke of Buccleuch, the biggest landowner in Britain, wait in line at Starbucks to buy her a coffee.

“One thing that did surprise me was only a few are from the aristocracy themselves.

“The Duchess of Rutland was a farmer’s daughter and said she did not have a clue about what it meant to be a duchess.

She was also surprised to discover that not all of them live in the lap of luxury.

“The Duchess of Leinster, her husband’s grandfather gambled the fortune away, so they live in Oxford in a five-bedroom home.

“It’s a nice idea that they would turn up in diamonds and tiaras to meet me,” she adds, “but many of them are working women.

“The Duchess of Bedford had just been down on the estate so came in trousers and jacket. The Duchess of Argyle had just done the school run so was in jeans and trainers.

“The Duchess of St Albans was probably the most glamorous.”

Jane said she was also ‘absolutely flabbergasted’ to discover the immense pressure still felt to give birth to a son.

“I sat in front of these intelligent women who had been journalists and had careers and realised that regardless of their education they had to produce an heir.

“The other thing was how hard they work. A lot of people think they spend their day in jewels wafting around the shrubbery. But not all of them have stately homes and those who do, it is extremely expensive to manage.

“The Duchess of Bedford lives in Woburn Abbey and is constantly thinking of ways of keeping it going and to keep people coming.”

“They are also very conscious of hostility towards their titles,” says Jane, and perhaps for this reason they are “incredibly secretive”. Apart from saying Kate is ‘glamorous’ and the Queen ‘hard-working’, they would not be drawn by the writer on the royal family.

“Probably the most surprising thing of all is that the duchesses on the whole don’t know each other. I imagined a duchess club where they all met up once a month but, no.

“Each of them was so fascinating and so different. There’s no such thing as a typical duchess, but what they do have in common is they are all proud to be married into families that form part of our history.”

Duchesses Living in 21st Century Britain is out now via Blink Publishing. Details: 01727 834966