If you were young, free and single – oh, and very well-to-do – the 1920s were the decade to be a part of. The upper classes had lots of time on their hands and enjoyed post-First World War delights such as the theatre and jazz clubs.
Not so for the lower classes, in particular a young girl who was to become the kitchen maid at Hoar Cross Hall in the 1920s. The ‘depression’ after the First World War brought stark poverty to her home and many like her. Her name was Jean Rennie, and she was extremely intelligent having won a scholarship to Glasgow University to study French and music. However, the £5 bursary she got was taken by her father and used to buy whiskey in his local pub. Her hopes of a career in music were dashed and she needed to find employment.
Jean was now known as Jenny and had many jobs as a servant, including one in a castle in the Highlands! She was, in her own words, 'a good housemaid but never a good servant'. With memories of hungry children fresh in her mind she could never get used to the wanton waste of food left on plates, in the homes she worked in. Her mistresses were always untidy with stockings, shoes and underwear “flung everywhere” and powder “spilt lavishly” – this always rankled with her and she never really got used to the ways of the aristocracy.
She gradually travelled down the country and eventually found a job in London. Although she was still a scullery maid, she worked under a skilled chef who taught her much and she hoped for a career as a cook. Her employers were good and so were the wages. When she got the job at Hoar Cross Hall she could not only read a menu (in customary French) but also write one and prepare many of the dishes herself. Lady Dorothy Meynell was very impressed with her and as her husband, Hugo Meynell was about to take a small shooting party to their Laughton estate, she asked Jenny to go with them to do the cooking. Jenny recalled how thrilled she was to ride alongside the chauffeur in the family Rolls-Royce.
As ducks were early risers Jenny had to start cooking at around 3am to get breakfast ready for 4am before shooting began. Colonel Meynell appeared pleased with her efforts and she was rewarded with £1 on her 21st birthday – a lot of money in those days!
On her return to the Hall she found that a new temporary cook had started. For the next four months her days were dominated by nagging and persecution, aided and abetted by the butler who joined in the game of baiting her. Cooks like this were typical of her kind – ‘trained with the whip’ – and Jenny found the working conditions difficult. However, leaving wasn’t easy as she lived at the Hall, all her belongings were there, her mother and sisters were all living and working a long way off and she also sent money home to her grandparents. She was also determined not to be beaten by the cook!
During ‘the season’ most of the staff went to the family’s London house. For those of you who don’t know what ‘the season’ is, it was a time between January and June which coincided with the opening of Parliament. The aristocracy went to their London mansions and were involved with lots of social events which politicians also attended – a form of 19th century networking. Daughters of marriageable age were introduced to society and presented to the monarch of the day as debutantes. They would be taken to a flurry of parties to meet eligible young men in the hope that they would make a good marriage. For the servants it must have been quite exciting being in the big city and seeing all the sights and one of the benefits was that on their half day they would be allowed out until 10pm instead of 9.30pm!
Once the season was over and Jenny returned to the Hall she was busy in the kitchen straightaway. She tells how there were visitors arriving and her statement below shows the implications for the staff of a large country house:-
“I don’t know who they were, but they were a lady and gentleman, a valet and lady’s maid, a grown-up daughter, and a very young child. Young enough to have a nanny. That meant three extra in the dining room, two extra in the steward’s room, an extra nanny, and an extra child. All on different sorts of food.”
They also, respectively, occupied different sorts of dining area!
Jenny’s day was seventeen hours long as the extra visitors made extra work! There were the vegetables to peel, the fire to keep up, bread sauce to make, gravy, grouse and fish to prepare, Melba sauce for the ice, the ice-pail to set and turn, washing up to be done after the meals, walking up and down from the larders, clearing everything away, scrubbing the boards, washing down the tables, sweeping the floor, making up the fire, washing the tea towels and putting them over the clothes horse. At 12.40am she was ready for bed!
Eventually though, in the Spring of 1929, she obtained a job as a head kitchen maid in London – ‘to better herself’. She remained in service until the Second World War when she noticed a big difference in domestic service. ‘The lower classes no long curtsy and bow, or work for the love of their betters’. She married and eventually settled in Norfolk. Her musical aspirations were partially fulfilled by amateur dramatics and she wrote two books about her time in service and the Americans in Britain during the war. Her university dream was finally realised in 1981, when at the age of 74, she enrolled at the University of East Anglia for a B.A. degree course in English Literature, history, philosophy, and drama. She graduated in 1984.
In 1991, she paid a visit to Hoar Cross, spending a pleasurable week as a guest in the Spa Hotel, above stairs! What a strange experience that must have been for her, albeit enjoyable!
Her life had now come full circle which just goes to show that you should never give up on your dreams and you’re never too old to do something new!
Don’t miss next week’s instalment: 'What the Butler Saw!'
If you would like to follow my story from the beginning, click here and please feel free to share with your friends.
Follow me around my childhood home in my 'Tour of the Hall' – click here to view and subscribe to my youtube channel.
OUT NOW!!! 'My Dad Bought a Mansion' is out in book form on Amazon - all my memoirs packed with lots of photographs from the times. Go check it out and let me know what you think!
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Viv Wilson | 29th October 2025 | Growing Up In a Stately Home
Going to sleep in a big old house is quite scary when you’re young but going to sleep in a big old house that’s haunted is even more scary!! As we approach Hallowe'en my mind has gone back to that first winter at Hoar Cross Hall and all the scary things that happened - and that was without any trick or treaters in those days! We quickly realised that we weren’t the only inhabitants of the house when we moved there in the 1970s. Every time there was a windy night I could hear a window banging in the attic – all night long it kept me awake. The next day I would go upstairs to the attics to close it but there would be no windows open or even loose. They were all tightly shut as they had been for the previous 20 years, when the house had stood empty. I remember standing there in the attic rooms feeling a tingling down my spine and goose bumps all over as I felt the atmosphere closing in on me - and I quickly legged it back downstairs! On other nights we would hear people walking along the attic corridor (the attic, by the way, was the floor right above our bedroom floor) and then at other times we could hear heavy furniture being dragged about – yet there was nothing up there as the rooms were all empty! How strange! Other members of the family heard it too and also people that stayed overnight, so it wasn’t the imaginings of a frightened child. There was also nobody else in the house at that point, apart from our family and they definitely weren’t walking about the house at 3am. And why is it that these things always happen in the middle of the night? When it’s dark. When we feel most scared? I often woke up at 3am whether there were noises or not – or perhaps there had been a noise and that’s what had woken me up – who knows? I also loved reading books about old houses, mysteries and ghosts but when you actually live in one in real life, it’s a bit different! The spooky attic The first few years at Hoar Cross Hall were the worst ones for spiritual activity - maybe we'd disturbed the ghosts who were used to an empty house and not one with children running about everywhere! Our family consisted of my mother, father and two younger brothers; my parents being members of the Historical Society were keen to buy a house to show my dad's huge arms and armour collection along with many antiques. But we hadn't bargained with the house being haunted! My mum was often woken up by the sight of a little girl ‘floating’ over the bed. She said the girl was wearing a long nightdress and mop cap and seemed to be stretching her arms out to my mum as if she was asking for help. She floated all around the bed scaring my mum half to death. Frantically she tried to wake my dad while the ghoulish girl reached out - by the time my dad was awake the child was fading away and he missed it all! If you haven’t already worked it out, long nighties and mop caps were the ‘go to’ fashion trend back in the Victorian days! She saw her a few times on the staircase too just standing in the corridor before fading away. This made me terrified to go upstairs to bed on my own and once inside my room I would lock the doors and burrow down under the blankets so I wouldn't see or hear anything - quite forgetting that ghosts can walk through walls! The haunted bedroom corridor When I got older it was great to have parties in the attics as we could play our rock music really loud and no-one would hear it! My dad had made the west wing of the house (the old Victorian nurseries) into an apartment which we rented out and it was here that my 18th birthday was celebrated as we had become friends with the people that lived there. As everyone had heard about the ghost stories at the Hall, we made an ouija board and tried to contact the spirits. Most people had had a few spirits of a different kind by then and we sat around the table watching the glass move aroun...
Viv Wilson | 24th September 2025 | Growing Up In a Stately Home
With the new Downton Abbey film out this month I thought I would do a comparison of the two family homes, Downton and Hoar Cross Hall, the latter being my old family home for those of you who are new to these blogs. Although Downton Abbey is fictional, the house on which it is based is not, it being Highclere Castle in Hampshire which was built in 1679 and is owned by the Earl of Carnarvon. Hoar Cross Hall was the original home of the Meynell Ingram family who first came from Leicestershire and was built in 1863. Hugo Meynell of Quorndon was the High Sheriff of Staffordshire and Member of Parliament for Lichfield and the family owned considerable property in Staffordshire, Shropshire and Derbyshire. He bought the Hoar Cross estate in 1793 and built a hunting lodge there known as Old Hall and founded the Meynell Hunt. It seemed the family lived here for many years until Hugo’s grandson, also Hugo, got married in 1863 and decided to build the present Hall for him and his wife, Emily Charlotte. The house took nine years to build and was eventually finished in 1871. Hugo and Emily had already moved in, but their new life together was soon to be cut short by a tragic accident. Fourteen months earlier at Birch Wood on their estate Hugo had a horse riding accident and had been bed-ridden ever since – he died in May of that year. They had no children and Emily built The Church of the Holy Angels in the grounds of the hall in memory of her husband. This is the church that I got married in over a hundred years later. On Hugo’s death Emily inherited the family's many large estates and they say she was a double millionairess – which in those days was a huge amount of money! Emily Charlotte The original site of Highclere Castle was recorded in the Doomsday Book of 1086 when an Anglo-Saxon king granted the estate to the Bishops of Winchester and in the 14th century a palace was built there by the Bishop. However, it was confiscated during the Reformation by Henry VIII. Later it was rebuilt in 1679 by Sir Robert Sawyer, Attorney-General to Charles II and looks to have stayed in his family ever since. The Downton Abbey story seems to be very similar to the Highclere Castle one actually! In the early part of the 20th century Downton is owned by the Earl of Grantham who marries an American heiress to save the family home. At about the same time Highclere was owned by the Earl of Carnarvon who also married the heiress to the Rothschild fortune and received a very large dowry. (In case you're wondering, a dowry is a sum of money or property given by the bride's family to the groom's family upon their marriage, and has historically been practiced by various cultures over the years). During the First World War, Highclere opened the house up as a hospital with the then Lady Carnarvon assisting as a nurse. In the Downton story Lord Grantham opens up the house to be used as a hospital for injured officers and some of the family assist in nursing them back to health. The Meynell family at Hoar Cross Hall also offered their home to be used as a hospital but were told that it was unsuitable owing to its isolation and inaccessibility in the country. However, Lady Mary Meynell opened her London home in Lennox Gardens to be used as a Military Hospital for officers during the First World War. Indeed, her own son, Francis, stayed there for a while recovering from severe wounds to the back in 1917, something which he never really recovered from resulting in his early death in 1941 at the age of 52. Hoar Cross Hall was too remote Although these aristocratic families seemed to live very charmed lives (and a lot of them did!) they also ran their estates to provide food and farm the land. This also gave local people much needed employment although being a domestic servant in those days could be quite hard with long hours and not much down time. However, they were families like the rest of us with the...
Viv Wilson | 19th August 2025 | Growing Up In a Stately Home
When Hugo and Emily Meynell built Hoar Cross Hall it included a whole estate with it, namely kitchen gardens, greenhouses, stables, a farm and cottages. This was quite common in those days as the estate supported the house with food etc and also gave employment to local people. Old Hall (their original home) was also on the estate and was accessed via a private road, which ran from the main road. By the time the 1970s came along the stable block and Old Hall were private houses and another part of Old Hall had been made into a children’s home. Emily Meynell had started this home in the Victorian days, calling it ‘The Home of the Good Shepherd’ but it was for boys only at that time. When we were there it was a mixed home and run by a husband and wife couple. They used to have fetes there in the summer and we would sometimes go round to play with the children, as they had lots of climbing frames and slides. The private road also joined up to our woods near the driveway and this is the road I walked along every day, up to the main road, to catch the bus to school in nearby Uttoxeter. It was about half a mile but I hated walking through the woods, especially in the winter when the mornings were darker. One day, whilst walking round Uttoxeter at lunchtime, I saw a newspaper board telling everyone about a streaker that had run through the town the day before – what was this? A man running naked for the fun of it? On further investigation I found that this was the latest craze from America – but why anyone would want to do it in our cold country was beyond me! Streaking comes to Britain! I was not an academic by any means and hated my schooldays. I was constantly being teased for being too thin, too quiet or for living in a stately home. (This was from the teachers too!) so when it was time for 'skools out for summer' I was more than ready to leave! By now the Mediaeval Banquets, which my parents ran in the house, were proving a huge success and as package holidays were becoming very popular my parents decided to book a two week holiday abroad. My dad had always wanted to go to Greece to see all the temples but was a bit disappointed when he got there. Most of the temples were in ruins and once you’ve seen one ruin you’ve pretty much seen them all! The Acropolis was quite impressive though. I loved being abroad – the weather was so hot and the sea was always warm. Cold climes don’t suit me as I feel the cold so much so I would always be outdoors as soon as the sun was out - most of my summer holidays were spent in the gardens weeding whilst listening to Radio 1 on my little portable radio, although usually I dreaded the school holidays as it meant I was stuck at home for six weeks, rarely seeing my friends. Ticket to the bullfight Because of the success of the banquets it meant we could go abroad every year and other holidays included trips to Majorca, Portugal and Spain. I remember in Majorca going on a lovely train ride through orange groves and gardens to the Caves of Drach – the scenery was stunning with mountains watching over us from their great height. In Portugal we went to see a bull fight which I found both thrilling and frightening all at once. The matadors came so close to the bull but I hated that they had to stab them first to make them angry – it seemed so cruel. In Spain we went to a club one night to see some flamenco dancing and they pulled me up onto the stage to join in which was fun, if unexpected! We also went on a day trip to Morocco and walked around the Kasbah, which was the local market (see header picture). I remember hoards of children following us around trying to sell us things. My dad noticed one of the stallholders smiling at me and said for a joke “You can have her for two camels”. Well, the man never left our side after that – he took it very seriously and followed us all round the market trying to n...
Viv Wilson | 25th June 2025 | Growing Up In a Stately Home
With the summer season well and truly upon us and Wimbledon almost here, I thought a blog about tennis might be in order! The game of tennis first started in the Mediaeval days and involved hitting a ball with a bare hand and later with a glove. By the 16th century the glove had become a racquet and the game had moved to an enclosed playing area and the rules had stabilized. This was known as ‘real tennis’. The word tennis came into use in English in the mid-14th century from French, via the Anglo-Norman term Tenez, which can be translated as 'hold', 'receive' or 'take', a call from the server to his opponent indicating that he is about to serve. It seems that royalty and the upper classes played tennis a lot, with Henry VIII making the biggest impact as a young monarch, playing the game with gusto at Hampton Court! However, the game was actually invented in Birmingham (England) and is the direct descendant of what is now denoted ‘real tennis’ or ‘royal tennis’ and continues to be played today with more complex rules. Many original courts still remain at Oxford, Cambridge, Falkland Palace in Fife, Scotland and Hampton Court Palace. Wimbledon itself is the oldest tennis tournament in the world and arguably the most famous. Since the first tournament 148 years ago in 1877, The Championships have been hosted by the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, London and take place over two weeks in late June – early July. Tennis became popular because of the waning interest in croquet and the Club decided to organise a tennis tournament to pay for the repair of its pony roller, used to maintain the lawns. It must have been popular as its still going strong! Although you may enjoy the tennis I think people love the strawberries and cream too that are famously served there! Or you may like a tour around the museum - check it out here Wimbledon Many stately homes would have had tennis courts including Hoar Cross Hall. However, when we moved there in the 1970s you couldn’t see them at all as the grass had grown long and wild and it looked liked a wilderness. In fact, we didn’t even know that there were tennis courts there until Mrs Meynell, the previous owner, told us! Mowing the old tennis courts in 1984 Of course, back in the 1930s the younger members of the Meynell family often played on them during their weekend house parties (see header picture). One young man who became a close friend of the Meynell family made regular visits to Hoar Cross and recalled the happy times he spent there as “.....the last days of the traditional English country house with weekend parties full of gracious living and good company.” The people who came to the parties were usually young aristocrats such as Lady Diana Legge and her sister Lady Elisabeth Bassett, who was lady-in-waiting to the Queen Mother from 1959 – 1993, when she retired at the age of 85! (see below) Lady Elizabeth (in the dark dress) Am-dram at a weekend house party on the tennis courts! I remember Mrs Meynell recalling a funny story about when they moved out of the Hall to a smaller house in the neighbouring village. Apparently her husband had come home one day to tell her he’d bought the house (without even consulting her) and the reason was that it had hard tennis courts, 'so much better than our grass ones' he told her! How different things were in those days – however, the servants were very pleased about the move as it meant less rooms to clean! And also less mowing now that they had hard courts! Don't miss next month's blog: 'Summer Balls and Garden Parties' If you would like to follow my story from the beginning, please click here and feel free to share with your friends.Follow me on a personal tour of my childhood home on YouTube. Click here to view and subscribe to my channel.OUT NOW!! 'My Dad Bought a Mansion' book is available on Amazon....
Viv Wilson | 29th October 2025 | Growing Up In a Stately Home
Going to sleep in a big old house is quite scary when you’re young but going to sleep in a big old house that’s haunted is even more scary!! As we approach Hallowe'en my mind has gone back to that first winter at Hoar Cross Hall and all the scary things that happened - and that was without any trick or treaters in those days! We quickly realised that we weren’t the only inhabitants of the house when we moved there in the 1970s. Every time there was a windy night I could hear a window banging in the attic – all night long it kept me awake. The next day I would go upstairs to the attics to close it but there would be no windows open or even loose. They were all tightly shut as they had been for the previous 20 years, when the house had stood empty. I remember standing there in the attic rooms feeling a tingling down my spine and goose bumps all over as I felt the atmosphere closing in on me - and I quickly legged it back downstairs! On other nights we would hear people walking along the attic corridor (the attic, by the way, was the floor right above our bedroom floor) and then at other times we could hear heavy furniture being dragged about – yet there was nothing up there as the rooms were all empty! How strange! Other members of the family heard it too and also people that stayed overnight, so it wasn’t the imaginings of a frightened child. There was also nobody else in the house at that point, apart from our family and they definitely weren’t walking about the house at 3am. And why is it that these things always happen in the middle of the night? When it’s dark. When we feel most scared? I often woke up at 3am whether there were noises or not – or perhaps there had been a noise and that’s what had woken me up – who knows? I also loved reading books about old houses, mysteries and ghosts but when you actually live in one in real life, it’s a bit different! The spooky attic The first few years at Hoar Cross Hall were the worst ones for spiritual activity - maybe we'd disturbed the ghosts who were used to an empty house and not one with children running about everywhere! Our family consisted of my mother, father and two younger brothers; my parents being members of the Historical Society were keen to buy a house to show my dad's huge arms and armour collection along with many antiques. But we hadn't bargained with the house being haunted! My mum was often woken up by the sight of a little girl ‘floating’ over the bed. She said the girl was wearing a long nightdress and mop cap and seemed to be stretching her arms out to my mum as if she was asking for help. She floated all around the bed scaring my mum half to death. Frantically she tried to wake my dad while the ghoulish girl reached out - by the time my dad was awake the child was fading away and he missed it all! If you haven’t already worked it out, long nighties and mop caps were the ‘go to’ fashion trend back in the Victorian days! She saw her a few times on the staircase too just standing in the corridor before fading away. This made me terrified to go upstairs to bed on my own and once inside my room I would lock the doors and burrow down under the blankets so I wouldn't see or hear anything - quite forgetting that ghosts can walk through walls! The haunted bedroom corridor When I got older it was great to have parties in the attics as we could play our rock music really loud and no-one would hear it! My dad had made the west wing of the house (the old Victorian nurseries) into an apartment which we rented out and it was here that my 18th birthday was celebrated as we had become friends with the people that lived there. As everyone had heard about the ghost stories at the Hall, we made an ouija board and tried to contact the spirits. Most people had had a few spirits of a different kind by then and we sat around the table watching the glass move aroun...
Viv Wilson | 24th September 2025 | Growing Up In a Stately Home
With the new Downton Abbey film out this month I thought I would do a comparison of the two family homes, Downton and Hoar Cross Hall, the latter being my old family home for those of you who are new to these blogs. Although Downton Abbey is fictional, the house on which it is based is not, it being Highclere Castle in Hampshire which was built in 1679 and is owned by the Earl of Carnarvon. Hoar Cross Hall was the original home of the Meynell Ingram family who first came from Leicestershire and was built in 1863. Hugo Meynell of Quorndon was the High Sheriff of Staffordshire and Member of Parliament for Lichfield and the family owned considerable property in Staffordshire, Shropshire and Derbyshire. He bought the Hoar Cross estate in 1793 and built a hunting lodge there known as Old Hall and founded the Meynell Hunt. It seemed the family lived here for many years until Hugo’s grandson, also Hugo, got married in 1863 and decided to build the present Hall for him and his wife, Emily Charlotte. The house took nine years to build and was eventually finished in 1871. Hugo and Emily had already moved in, but their new life together was soon to be cut short by a tragic accident. Fourteen months earlier at Birch Wood on their estate Hugo had a horse riding accident and had been bed-ridden ever since – he died in May of that year. They had no children and Emily built The Church of the Holy Angels in the grounds of the hall in memory of her husband. This is the church that I got married in over a hundred years later. On Hugo’s death Emily inherited the family's many large estates and they say she was a double millionairess – which in those days was a huge amount of money! Emily Charlotte The original site of Highclere Castle was recorded in the Doomsday Book of 1086 when an Anglo-Saxon king granted the estate to the Bishops of Winchester and in the 14th century a palace was built there by the Bishop. However, it was confiscated during the Reformation by Henry VIII. Later it was rebuilt in 1679 by Sir Robert Sawyer, Attorney-General to Charles II and looks to have stayed in his family ever since. The Downton Abbey story seems to be very similar to the Highclere Castle one actually! In the early part of the 20th century Downton is owned by the Earl of Grantham who marries an American heiress to save the family home. At about the same time Highclere was owned by the Earl of Carnarvon who also married the heiress to the Rothschild fortune and received a very large dowry. (In case you're wondering, a dowry is a sum of money or property given by the bride's family to the groom's family upon their marriage, and has historically been practiced by various cultures over the years). During the First World War, Highclere opened the house up as a hospital with the then Lady Carnarvon assisting as a nurse. In the Downton story Lord Grantham opens up the house to be used as a hospital for injured officers and some of the family assist in nursing them back to health. The Meynell family at Hoar Cross Hall also offered their home to be used as a hospital but were told that it was unsuitable owing to its isolation and inaccessibility in the country. However, Lady Mary Meynell opened her London home in Lennox Gardens to be used as a Military Hospital for officers during the First World War. Indeed, her own son, Francis, stayed there for a while recovering from severe wounds to the back in 1917, something which he never really recovered from resulting in his early death in 1941 at the age of 52. Hoar Cross Hall was too remote Although these aristocratic families seemed to live very charmed lives (and a lot of them did!) they also ran their estates to provide food and farm the land. This also gave local people much needed employment although being a domestic servant in those days could be quite hard with long hours and not much down time. However, they were families like the rest of us with the...
Viv Wilson | 19th August 2025 | Growing Up In a Stately Home
When Hugo and Emily Meynell built Hoar Cross Hall it included a whole estate with it, namely kitchen gardens, greenhouses, stables, a farm and cottages. This was quite common in those days as the estate supported the house with food etc and also gave employment to local people. Old Hall (their original home) was also on the estate and was accessed via a private road, which ran from the main road. By the time the 1970s came along the stable block and Old Hall were private houses and another part of Old Hall had been made into a children’s home. Emily Meynell had started this home in the Victorian days, calling it ‘The Home of the Good Shepherd’ but it was for boys only at that time. When we were there it was a mixed home and run by a husband and wife couple. They used to have fetes there in the summer and we would sometimes go round to play with the children, as they had lots of climbing frames and slides. The private road also joined up to our woods near the driveway and this is the road I walked along every day, up to the main road, to catch the bus to school in nearby Uttoxeter. It was about half a mile but I hated walking through the woods, especially in the winter when the mornings were darker. One day, whilst walking round Uttoxeter at lunchtime, I saw a newspaper board telling everyone about a streaker that had run through the town the day before – what was this? A man running naked for the fun of it? On further investigation I found that this was the latest craze from America – but why anyone would want to do it in our cold country was beyond me! Streaking comes to Britain! I was not an academic by any means and hated my schooldays. I was constantly being teased for being too thin, too quiet or for living in a stately home. (This was from the teachers too!) so when it was time for 'skools out for summer' I was more than ready to leave! By now the Mediaeval Banquets, which my parents ran in the house, were proving a huge success and as package holidays were becoming very popular my parents decided to book a two week holiday abroad. My dad had always wanted to go to Greece to see all the temples but was a bit disappointed when he got there. Most of the temples were in ruins and once you’ve seen one ruin you’ve pretty much seen them all! The Acropolis was quite impressive though. I loved being abroad – the weather was so hot and the sea was always warm. Cold climes don’t suit me as I feel the cold so much so I would always be outdoors as soon as the sun was out - most of my summer holidays were spent in the gardens weeding whilst listening to Radio 1 on my little portable radio, although usually I dreaded the school holidays as it meant I was stuck at home for six weeks, rarely seeing my friends. Ticket to the bullfight Because of the success of the banquets it meant we could go abroad every year and other holidays included trips to Majorca, Portugal and Spain. I remember in Majorca going on a lovely train ride through orange groves and gardens to the Caves of Drach – the scenery was stunning with mountains watching over us from their great height. In Portugal we went to see a bull fight which I found both thrilling and frightening all at once. The matadors came so close to the bull but I hated that they had to stab them first to make them angry – it seemed so cruel. In Spain we went to a club one night to see some flamenco dancing and they pulled me up onto the stage to join in which was fun, if unexpected! We also went on a day trip to Morocco and walked around the Kasbah, which was the local market (see header picture). I remember hoards of children following us around trying to sell us things. My dad noticed one of the stallholders smiling at me and said for a joke “You can have her for two camels”. Well, the man never left our side after that – he took it very seriously and followed us all round the market trying to n...
Viv Wilson | 25th June 2025 | Growing Up In a Stately Home
With the summer season well and truly upon us and Wimbledon almost here, I thought a blog about tennis might be in order! The game of tennis first started in the Mediaeval days and involved hitting a ball with a bare hand and later with a glove. By the 16th century the glove had become a racquet and the game had moved to an enclosed playing area and the rules had stabilized. This was known as ‘real tennis’. The word tennis came into use in English in the mid-14th century from French, via the Anglo-Norman term Tenez, which can be translated as 'hold', 'receive' or 'take', a call from the server to his opponent indicating that he is about to serve. It seems that royalty and the upper classes played tennis a lot, with Henry VIII making the biggest impact as a young monarch, playing the game with gusto at Hampton Court! However, the game was actually invented in Birmingham (England) and is the direct descendant of what is now denoted ‘real tennis’ or ‘royal tennis’ and continues to be played today with more complex rules. Many original courts still remain at Oxford, Cambridge, Falkland Palace in Fife, Scotland and Hampton Court Palace. Wimbledon itself is the oldest tennis tournament in the world and arguably the most famous. Since the first tournament 148 years ago in 1877, The Championships have been hosted by the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, London and take place over two weeks in late June – early July. Tennis became popular because of the waning interest in croquet and the Club decided to organise a tennis tournament to pay for the repair of its pony roller, used to maintain the lawns. It must have been popular as its still going strong! Although you may enjoy the tennis I think people love the strawberries and cream too that are famously served there! Or you may like a tour around the museum - check it out here Wimbledon Many stately homes would have had tennis courts including Hoar Cross Hall. However, when we moved there in the 1970s you couldn’t see them at all as the grass had grown long and wild and it looked liked a wilderness. In fact, we didn’t even know that there were tennis courts there until Mrs Meynell, the previous owner, told us! Mowing the old tennis courts in 1984 Of course, back in the 1930s the younger members of the Meynell family often played on them during their weekend house parties (see header picture). One young man who became a close friend of the Meynell family made regular visits to Hoar Cross and recalled the happy times he spent there as “.....the last days of the traditional English country house with weekend parties full of gracious living and good company.” The people who came to the parties were usually young aristocrats such as Lady Diana Legge and her sister Lady Elisabeth Bassett, who was lady-in-waiting to the Queen Mother from 1959 – 1993, when she retired at the age of 85! (see below) Lady Elizabeth (in the dark dress) Am-dram at a weekend house party on the tennis courts! I remember Mrs Meynell recalling a funny story about when they moved out of the Hall to a smaller house in the neighbouring village. Apparently her husband had come home one day to tell her he’d bought the house (without even consulting her) and the reason was that it had hard tennis courts, 'so much better than our grass ones' he told her! How different things were in those days – however, the servants were very pleased about the move as it meant less rooms to clean! And also less mowing now that they had hard courts! Don't miss next month's blog: 'Summer Balls and Garden Parties' If you would like to follow my story from the beginning, please click here and feel free to share with your friends.Follow me on a personal tour of my childhood home on YouTube. Click here to view and subscribe to my channel.OUT NOW!! 'My Dad Bought a Mansion' book is available on Amazon....
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Viv Wilson | 29th October 2025 | Growing Up In a Stately Home
Going to sleep in a big old house is quite scary when you’re young but going to sleep in a big old house that’s haunted is even more scary!! As we approach Hallowe'en my mind has gone back to that first winter at Hoar Cross Hall and all the scary things that happened - and that was without any trick or treaters in those days! We quickly realised that we weren’t the only inhabitants of the house when we moved there in the 1970s. Every time there was a windy night I could hear a window banging in the attic – all night long it kept me awake. The next day I would go upstairs to the attics to close it but there would be no windows open or even loose. They were all tightly shut as they had been for the previous 20 years, when the house had stood empty. I remember standing there in the attic rooms feeling a tingling down my spine and goose bumps all over as I felt the atmosphere closing in on me - and I quickly legged it back downstairs! On other nights we would hear people walking along the attic corridor (the attic, by the way, was the floor right above our bedroom floor) and then at other times we could hear heavy furniture being dragged about – yet there was nothing up there as the rooms were all empty! How strange! Other members of the family heard it too and also people that stayed overnight, so it wasn’t the imaginings of a frightened child. There was also nobody else in the house at that point, apart from our family and they definitely weren’t walking about the house at 3am. And why is it that these things always happen in the middle of the night? When it’s dark. When we feel most scared? I often woke up at 3am whether there were noises or not – or perhaps there had been a noise and that’s what had woken me up – who knows? I also loved reading books about old houses, mysteries and ghosts but when you actually live in one in real life, it’s a bit different! The spooky attic The first few years at Hoar Cross Hall were the worst ones for spiritual activity - maybe we'd disturbed the ghosts who were used to an empty house and not one with children running about everywhere! Our family consisted of my mother, father and two younger brothers; my parents being members of the Historical Society were keen to buy a house to show my dad's huge arms and armour collection along with many antiques. But we hadn't bargained with the house being haunted! My mum was often woken up by the sight of a little girl ‘floating’ over the bed. She said the girl was wearing a long nightdress and mop cap and seemed to be stretching her arms out to my mum as if she was asking for help. She floated all around the bed scaring my mum half to death. Frantically she tried to wake my dad while the ghoulish girl reached out - by the time my dad was awake the child was fading away and he missed it all! If you haven’t already worked it out, long nighties and mop caps were the ‘go to’ fashion trend back in the Victorian days! She saw her a few times on the staircase too just standing in the corridor before fading away. This made me terrified to go upstairs to bed on my own and once inside my room I would lock the doors and burrow down under the blankets so I wouldn't see or hear anything - quite forgetting that ghosts can walk through walls! The haunted bedroom corridor When I got older it was great to have parties in the attics as we could play our rock music really loud and no-one would hear it! My dad had made the west wing of the house (the old Victorian nurseries) into an apartment which we rented out and it was here that my 18th birthday was celebrated as we had become friends with the people that lived there. As everyone had heard about the ghost stories at the Hall, we made an ouija board and tried to contact the spirits. Most people had had a few spirits of a different kind by then and we sat around the table watching the glass move aroun...
Viv Wilson | 24th September 2025 | Growing Up In a Stately Home
With the new Downton Abbey film out this month I thought I would do a comparison of the two family homes, Downton and Hoar Cross Hall, the latter being my old family home for those of you who are new to these blogs. Although Downton Abbey is fictional, the house on which it is based is not, it being Highclere Castle in Hampshire which was built in 1679 and is owned by the Earl of Carnarvon. Hoar Cross Hall was the original home of the Meynell Ingram family who first came from Leicestershire and was built in 1863. Hugo Meynell of Quorndon was the High Sheriff of Staffordshire and Member of Parliament for Lichfield and the family owned considerable property in Staffordshire, Shropshire and Derbyshire. He bought the Hoar Cross estate in 1793 and built a hunting lodge there known as Old Hall and founded the Meynell Hunt. It seemed the family lived here for many years until Hugo’s grandson, also Hugo, got married in 1863 and decided to build the present Hall for him and his wife, Emily Charlotte. The house took nine years to build and was eventually finished in 1871. Hugo and Emily had already moved in, but their new life together was soon to be cut short by a tragic accident. Fourteen months earlier at Birch Wood on their estate Hugo had a horse riding accident and had been bed-ridden ever since – he died in May of that year. They had no children and Emily built The Church of the Holy Angels in the grounds of the hall in memory of her husband. This is the church that I got married in over a hundred years later. On Hugo’s death Emily inherited the family's many large estates and they say she was a double millionairess – which in those days was a huge amount of money! Emily Charlotte The original site of Highclere Castle was recorded in the Doomsday Book of 1086 when an Anglo-Saxon king granted the estate to the Bishops of Winchester and in the 14th century a palace was built there by the Bishop. However, it was confiscated during the Reformation by Henry VIII. Later it was rebuilt in 1679 by Sir Robert Sawyer, Attorney-General to Charles II and looks to have stayed in his family ever since. The Downton Abbey story seems to be very similar to the Highclere Castle one actually! In the early part of the 20th century Downton is owned by the Earl of Grantham who marries an American heiress to save the family home. At about the same time Highclere was owned by the Earl of Carnarvon who also married the heiress to the Rothschild fortune and received a very large dowry. (In case you're wondering, a dowry is a sum of money or property given by the bride's family to the groom's family upon their marriage, and has historically been practiced by various cultures over the years). During the First World War, Highclere opened the house up as a hospital with the then Lady Carnarvon assisting as a nurse. In the Downton story Lord Grantham opens up the house to be used as a hospital for injured officers and some of the family assist in nursing them back to health. The Meynell family at Hoar Cross Hall also offered their home to be used as a hospital but were told that it was unsuitable owing to its isolation and inaccessibility in the country. However, Lady Mary Meynell opened her London home in Lennox Gardens to be used as a Military Hospital for officers during the First World War. Indeed, her own son, Francis, stayed there for a while recovering from severe wounds to the back in 1917, something which he never really recovered from resulting in his early death in 1941 at the age of 52. Hoar Cross Hall was too remote Although these aristocratic families seemed to live very charmed lives (and a lot of them did!) they also ran their estates to provide food and farm the land. This also gave local people much needed employment although being a domestic servant in those days could be quite hard with long hours and not much down time. However, they were families like the rest of us with the...
Viv Wilson | 19th August 2025 | Growing Up In a Stately Home
When Hugo and Emily Meynell built Hoar Cross Hall it included a whole estate with it, namely kitchen gardens, greenhouses, stables, a farm and cottages. This was quite common in those days as the estate supported the house with food etc and also gave employment to local people. Old Hall (their original home) was also on the estate and was accessed via a private road, which ran from the main road. By the time the 1970s came along the stable block and Old Hall were private houses and another part of Old Hall had been made into a children’s home. Emily Meynell had started this home in the Victorian days, calling it ‘The Home of the Good Shepherd’ but it was for boys only at that time. When we were there it was a mixed home and run by a husband and wife couple. They used to have fetes there in the summer and we would sometimes go round to play with the children, as they had lots of climbing frames and slides. The private road also joined up to our woods near the driveway and this is the road I walked along every day, up to the main road, to catch the bus to school in nearby Uttoxeter. It was about half a mile but I hated walking through the woods, especially in the winter when the mornings were darker. One day, whilst walking round Uttoxeter at lunchtime, I saw a newspaper board telling everyone about a streaker that had run through the town the day before – what was this? A man running naked for the fun of it? On further investigation I found that this was the latest craze from America – but why anyone would want to do it in our cold country was beyond me! Streaking comes to Britain! I was not an academic by any means and hated my schooldays. I was constantly being teased for being too thin, too quiet or for living in a stately home. (This was from the teachers too!) so when it was time for 'skools out for summer' I was more than ready to leave! By now the Mediaeval Banquets, which my parents ran in the house, were proving a huge success and as package holidays were becoming very popular my parents decided to book a two week holiday abroad. My dad had always wanted to go to Greece to see all the temples but was a bit disappointed when he got there. Most of the temples were in ruins and once you’ve seen one ruin you’ve pretty much seen them all! The Acropolis was quite impressive though. I loved being abroad – the weather was so hot and the sea was always warm. Cold climes don’t suit me as I feel the cold so much so I would always be outdoors as soon as the sun was out - most of my summer holidays were spent in the gardens weeding whilst listening to Radio 1 on my little portable radio, although usually I dreaded the school holidays as it meant I was stuck at home for six weeks, rarely seeing my friends. Ticket to the bullfight Because of the success of the banquets it meant we could go abroad every year and other holidays included trips to Majorca, Portugal and Spain. I remember in Majorca going on a lovely train ride through orange groves and gardens to the Caves of Drach – the scenery was stunning with mountains watching over us from their great height. In Portugal we went to see a bull fight which I found both thrilling and frightening all at once. The matadors came so close to the bull but I hated that they had to stab them first to make them angry – it seemed so cruel. In Spain we went to a club one night to see some flamenco dancing and they pulled me up onto the stage to join in which was fun, if unexpected! We also went on a day trip to Morocco and walked around the Kasbah, which was the local market (see header picture). I remember hoards of children following us around trying to sell us things. My dad noticed one of the stallholders smiling at me and said for a joke “You can have her for two camels”. Well, the man never left our side after that – he took it very seriously and followed us all round the market trying to n...
Viv Wilson | 25th June 2025 | Growing Up In a Stately Home
With the summer season well and truly upon us and Wimbledon almost here, I thought a blog about tennis might be in order! The game of tennis first started in the Mediaeval days and involved hitting a ball with a bare hand and later with a glove. By the 16th century the glove had become a racquet and the game had moved to an enclosed playing area and the rules had stabilized. This was known as ‘real tennis’. The word tennis came into use in English in the mid-14th century from French, via the Anglo-Norman term Tenez, which can be translated as 'hold', 'receive' or 'take', a call from the server to his opponent indicating that he is about to serve. It seems that royalty and the upper classes played tennis a lot, with Henry VIII making the biggest impact as a young monarch, playing the game with gusto at Hampton Court! However, the game was actually invented in Birmingham (England) and is the direct descendant of what is now denoted ‘real tennis’ or ‘royal tennis’ and continues to be played today with more complex rules. Many original courts still remain at Oxford, Cambridge, Falkland Palace in Fife, Scotland and Hampton Court Palace. Wimbledon itself is the oldest tennis tournament in the world and arguably the most famous. Since the first tournament 148 years ago in 1877, The Championships have been hosted by the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, London and take place over two weeks in late June – early July. Tennis became popular because of the waning interest in croquet and the Club decided to organise a tennis tournament to pay for the repair of its pony roller, used to maintain the lawns. It must have been popular as its still going strong! Although you may enjoy the tennis I think people love the strawberries and cream too that are famously served there! Or you may like a tour around the museum - check it out here Wimbledon Many stately homes would have had tennis courts including Hoar Cross Hall. However, when we moved there in the 1970s you couldn’t see them at all as the grass had grown long and wild and it looked liked a wilderness. In fact, we didn’t even know that there were tennis courts there until Mrs Meynell, the previous owner, told us! Mowing the old tennis courts in 1984 Of course, back in the 1930s the younger members of the Meynell family often played on them during their weekend house parties (see header picture). One young man who became a close friend of the Meynell family made regular visits to Hoar Cross and recalled the happy times he spent there as “.....the last days of the traditional English country house with weekend parties full of gracious living and good company.” The people who came to the parties were usually young aristocrats such as Lady Diana Legge and her sister Lady Elisabeth Bassett, who was lady-in-waiting to the Queen Mother from 1959 – 1993, when she retired at the age of 85! (see below) Lady Elizabeth (in the dark dress) Am-dram at a weekend house party on the tennis courts! I remember Mrs Meynell recalling a funny story about when they moved out of the Hall to a smaller house in the neighbouring village. Apparently her husband had come home one day to tell her he’d bought the house (without even consulting her) and the reason was that it had hard tennis courts, 'so much better than our grass ones' he told her! How different things were in those days – however, the servants were very pleased about the move as it meant less rooms to clean! And also less mowing now that they had hard courts! Don't miss next month's blog: 'Summer Balls and Garden Parties' If you would like to follow my story from the beginning, please click here and feel free to share with your friends.Follow me on a personal tour of my childhood home on YouTube. Click here to view and subscribe to my channel.OUT NOW!! 'My Dad Bought a Mansion' book is available on Amazon....
