Waddesdon is a notably strange place, an 1880s fake French chateau
filled with top-end antiques and interiors salvaged from real
chateaux. It was built primarily as a museum and weekend retreat,
little changed since 1898, bequeathed to the National Trust in 1957
and managed for them by the Rothschild Foundation -- nobody lives
there. TV documentaries have shown how Lord Rothschild keeps a close
eye on it and buys bits for it.

It's interesting that the Rothschilds never got into music -- there
is a single, if fancy, piano at Waddesdon. Basically the collection
predates the mechanical music era. There's a small mechanical organ
in the collection but that was added in the 1960s, an item accepted
by the government in lieu of tax.

The elephant automaton plays bells, as can be heard in the official
video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YEPhe2Gp0Y
 

Julian Dyer