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Motor Racing Days #9

Although my blogs are about living at Hoar Cross Hall, I would just like to give a bit of background about my dad’s racing career in the years leading up to moving to the Hall as this will set the scene for later instalments of my story. As mentioned in my first blog my dad used to be a racing driver but he actually started off racing motor cycles in the 1930s. Because of this he became a despatch rider during the Second World War and spent a lot of time in North Africa. After the war he started racing motor bikes at nearby Donington Park and he raced there up to the beginning of the 1950s. After that he moved onto cars and drove a Cooper 500cc (which is the...

Hickleton Hall and the Meynells #43

This lovely Grade II listed Georgian house in South Yorkshire was once the childhood home of The Honourable Emily Charlotte Meynell who married Hugo Meynell of Hoar Cross and who, together with Hugo, built Hoar Cross Hall to be their family home in 1873. The original house was called Hickleton Palace and had been built for Judge Francis Rodes in the 16th century but in 1745 Hickleton Hall was built just to the south of this house after the estate was bought by Godfrey Wentworth in about 1730. Thirty years later he extended the house and added two low wings, one either side, and a servants wing. Emily's father, Charles Wood, 3rd Baronet, inherited the house in...

Hoar Cross Hall - a bit of history #17

If you love to read up on the history of old houses then you'll love to hear about all the generations of people that lived at Hoar Cross Hall.  Hoar Cross was part of Needwood Forest, the 11th century lands of Henry de Ferrers. The land was passed down to Henry’s son and subsequent various people over the course of 500 years ending with the Webb family, around the 1730s, who bought the land and house known as the Manor of the Cross. This was quite a large house built on a hill near Yoxall (which is the village next to Hoar Cross). In 1740 the manor house was demolished and later the Hon. Charles Talbot bought the estate for £17,000. Eventually it was sold t...

See you in Court #27

The saga of my parents’ split continued as we grew up in our stately home, although their behaviour was anything but stately for most of the time! Seven years of arguing and fighting were about to come to an end and the solicitors had finally agreed on a date to go to court. We carried on helping my dad to run the Hall and he still went to his boat in Caernarfon at weekends to get away from the house but we were all getting weary of it now. We were young adults and wanting to get on with our own lives. After five years together we were hoping to get married at some point so we were glad that it was finally going to be sorted out one way or another. Gavin was...

The Tax Man Cometh #29

My parents’ court case was finally over and my dad had six months to leave the family home, Hoar Cross Hall. In the meantime my mum had to find the funds to buy him out and he had to find another house to live in. He also had an awful lot of stuff to move too! He eventually found a house in nearby Burton-on-Trent but as it was obviously a lot smaller he had to get rid of a lot of his possessions and one of the first things to go was his Lotus Elite. He advertised it in the local paper but instead of getting a phone call from a likely buyer, the first call was from the local tax office. Back in those days they used to check advertisements in the newspapers and...

Moving Out #32

And so the day arrived a month or so after our wedding when my dad had to leave Hoar Cross Hall. Ten years after moving in he was now moving out, leaving his dream home for my mum to live in alone. Gavin moved with him and Piers was away at school most of the time. It was a mammoth task as he had so much stuff to move, especially from the basement. He had some heavy machinery too that he’d brought with him from his alabaster days, including a band saw which we used to saw up logs for the huge fireplaces in the main rooms. He had bought a house in nearby Burton-on-Trent which had some outbuildings for a workshop and there he moved to start afresh. He carried o...