Black Mischief was partly written at Madresfield Court, the home of the 7th Earl Beauchamp, and is dedicated to his two youngest daughters, Mary and Dorothy Lygon. Waugh was first invited to ‘Mad’ in 1931, six months after the 7th Earl was indicted for homosexuality and went into exile in Europe.

We get a strong impression of this family's recuperative effect on Waugh from his letters. After the breakup of his first marriage, he had found self-defensive refuge in the chilly persona of a man of the world. As Michael Davie, editor of the Diaries, points out, their tone became ‘brisk, impersonal, and Tatler-ish’ (D 307), a sardonic relay of society gossip. Friendship with the Lygons brought a welcome change. Waugh's affectionate letters to the two youngest Lygon daughters (‘Blondy’ and ‘Poll ’) are exuberantly naughty and fantastical. He was clearly happy at ‘Mad’, composing Black Mischief in the day nursery in the attics, and learning to ride in the Malvern hills, in preparation for his next journey into the wilds.

The story of the Lygon family is well known to lie behind Brideshead Revisited, and Brideshead's stately house is routinely derived from Madresfield. Yet Madresfield first appears in Waugh's work as Hetton Abbey in A Handful of Dust. The local guide book baldly states of Hetton, ‘This, formerly one of the notable houses of the county, was entirely rebuilt in 1864 in the Gothic style and is now devoid of interest’. Madresfield dates back to the late twelfth century and was first improved in the Elizabethan era. From 1863–88 it, like Hetton, was perversely rebuilt. A mock- Elizabethan moated mansion, it is now a self-confessed architectural hybrid. Over 160 rooms of every conceivable style and size lie beneath two-and-a-half acres of tiles. The house has remained in the hands of the same family for twenty-eight generations. Its medieval oak outer doors, so the boast went, had neither lock nor handle because the house had never been left unoccupied since its inception.

Hetton closely replicates Madresfield's architectural gallimaufry, and the foibles of the 7th Earl 's lifestyle. In both households champagne was decanted into a tall jug before serving.