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In 1933, aged 65, Lady Evelyn Cobbold, the great grandmother of Major Philip Hope-Cobbold who owns Glemham Hall, became the first British-born Moslem woman to make the Hajj.

She'd converted to Islam in the late 1800's having learnt about the faith during her childhood. Evelyn Murray was born a Scottish aristocrat and became a Mayfair socialite. She spent her childhood winters in North Africa where her fascination with Islam developed.

The Grand Mosque in modern-day Mecca

The beliefs of the people around her, and her frequent visits to the mosques in Algiers, helped shape her own understanding of Islam and in spite of the social constraints of the time she adopted the religion.

"Islam," Evelyn later wrote, "is the religion of common sense."

Lady Evelyn's story about her life, her conversion and her pilgrimage to Mecca are all recorded in her diaries which have recently been republished.

She'd married into the Cobbold brewing family in 1891 but her marriage to John Dupius Cobbold didn't last, and the couple eventually separated in 1922.

But it was her attempt to find solace for an unhappy marriage that she eventually went back to Africa, and to Islam.

Looking back at her life and her formative years in North Africa, Lady Evelyn wrote that she always found it difficult to determine exactly when her conversion happened, feeling instead that it was a life-long calling.

She wrote that she'd been: "Unconsciously a little Moslem at heart.

"I happened to be in Rome, staying with some Italian friends when my host asked if I would like to visit the Pope.

Lady Evelyn in her burka

"Of course I was thrilled. When His Holiness suddenly addressed me by asking if I was a Catholic I was taken aback for a moment then replied that I was a Moslem. What possessed me I don't pretend to know as I had not given a thought to Islam for many years.

"A match was lit and then and there I determined to read up and study the faith."

Evelyn was a remarkable woman for her time with a truly adventurous spirit. Her conversion itself was unusual for British women at the time. To go on the Hajj was even more remarkable.

Saudi Arabia had only just been created as a single country. Before 1932 it was a collection of regions. The money and wealth the country has amassed through oil production wasn't apparent then, making the contrast between the country and middle class Suffolk even starker.

"That said she fitted in wherever she went," Major Hope-Cobbold said. "Of course she used her social position in Saudi, making sure she had contact with princes and so on to make sure she was comfortable, but she also mingled with pilgrims on the pilgrimage just as easily."

Lady Evelyn with her children

Lady Evelyn Cobbold died in 1963 aged 96, and is buried on her Scottish estate at Glencarron, Wester Ross.

So how do Major Hope-Cobbold and the current Cobbold family remember such a remarkable woman?

"She was a very lively, eccentric Anglo-Scot Moslem, who loved doing things and loved people as well," said Major Hope-Cobbold.

Well that just about sums her up!

Pilgrimage To Mecca by Lady Evelyn Cobbold is published by Arabian Publishing of London 020 7580 8456 or email: william.facey@arabia.uk/com