Cholmondeley was born in 1919 in St George Hanover Square, London, a descendant of Sir Robert Walpole, the first Prime Minister of Great Britain.
Like his great-great-grandfather, his great-granduncle, his great-grandfather, his grandfather, his father and his son, Cholmondeley was educated at Eton.
Cholmondeley served in the British army, initially in the Grenadier Guards and later in the 1st Royal Dragoons.
[10] The family seats are Houghton Hall, Norfolk, and Cholmondeley Castle, which is surrounded by a 7,500-acre (30 km2) estate near Malpas, Cheshire.
[11] One moiety part of the ancient office of Lord Great Chamberlain is a Cholmondeley inheritance.