Grifón de Bruselas"Mrs Nellie Ionides"

In the 1920’s the Vulcan Kennels at Orleans House housed around 40 Griffons,
Many were imported from Brussels and Paris. All colours were kept but Mrs Levy (as she was then) much preferred the blacks and it had been her intention to specialise entirely on breeding blacks, but she had found it difficult to breed the numbers to fulfil demand. In the late 1920’s now Mrs. Ionides, her kennels were described as “perhaps the largest Kennel of Griffon in the world”. Orleans House apparently being a perfect dog paradise, Mrs Ionides had a Kennel manager and staff to look after the dogs and their puppies, she also kept Cairns at that time and later Poodles and Sealyhams.
She continued importing stud dogs, many of them champions in their country of origin, although she renamed them all with her affix, they were: Vulcan Joffre r/r, Vulcan Keptje r/s, Vulcan Satan bt/s, Vulcan Trosky r/r and Vulcan Mephisto bt.
In the mid 1930’s Mrs Ionides added the first of the Poodles to joint Vulcan from the Nunsoe kennels, and as war approached, she purchased the Nunsoe dogs and moved them and the Griffons to Buxted Park. In an article on Shirley Walne, who had worked with the Nunsoes and then stayed on with the Vulcans as a partner, she would never forget the day the Griffons arrived at the Park, the cars drew up and 40 Griffon spilled out, all colour, reds, blacks and black and tans, al ready for the tough life and the Daily hunt in the woods.
Although Griffons continued to be a part of the Vulcan kennels after the war, it appears that the Poodles took over and the “Vulcan Champagne” affix became one of the top names in Standard Poodles and is still in existence today with Ann Cambray Coppage. Mrs. Ionides did not show her Griffons very much, in the early days she concentrated on importing stock to improve her lines, and with the advent of war and with no shows she never really proved the true worth of her Griffons. She had one dog Vulcan Varro b/r who won Cc’s in 1937/38 unfortunately he died young, and a bitch Vulcan Venusia a r/r who was the dam of Ch Partridge Hill Polonaise (born 1943 and the first post-war Ch bitch). It is recorded in Miss Cousens second book that Polonaise was in Ireland during the later war years with and mated to Irish Ch Victor (of Babbacombe) produced Ch´s Skibbereen Brandan and Rozanne. She returned here after the war to Mrs. Parker-Rhodes (Partridge Hill), recorded as her breeder, and later became Miss Cousen´s foundation bitch for her Seagry kennels. There is an interesting story hare as Ann Cambray Coppage very kindly let us have copies of litters and registration details for Vulcan Griffons 1938-1952 which records a bitch born 1/1/1943 Vulcan Voila sold to a Miss Beaumont in August’43 for 18 guineas, the sire was Partridge Hill Providence, the dam Vulcan Venusia, these details correspond exactly to Polonaise´s pedigree, so I asume that Venusia was sold to Mrs. Parker-Rhodes and a litter siter came back to Vulcan. Looking back to some old ads Polonaise was purchaised from the Partridge Hill kennels by Mrs. Scott Kerr of Dublín in 1944.
So the Griffon were bred at the Vulcan kennels until 1952, the last litter all being sold, it appears that the two Griffons remembered by Ann were Don Juan and Vulcan Venetia (Spinnet). Both born in 1950.