Story Search Results

Hoar Cross Hall - Life Below Stairs #35

...uld bring across masses of palms and pot plants to decorate the rooms. Home Farm supplied the estate with as much produce as was needed. In addition to the farm workers, the estate employed bricklayers, a stone mason, foresters and thatchers, carpenters, a joiner, a plumber and an electrician. They looked after the Hall and the workers’ cottages and all tenanted properties. The head gardener had a lot of authority outside the house and even the mistress would have to seek his permission first before entering the nursery gardens! Around Christmas time, all the staff and local trades’ people who supplied the house, were invited to a party held in the Long Gal...

Moving Day Arrives #2

...they went across the top floor in the attic and back down the spiral staircase at the other end of the house, briefly popping their heads out on the first floor to see a few rooms in the East Wing and then back down to the Ground Floor. Somehow dad managed to confuse him so much that he missed out two floors altogether and he actually thought the house was half the size it really was! By the time he finished I think he really did feel sorry for us and we never paid the correct rates bill for the place – at least not at first anyhow!   Don’t miss next week’s instalment:   'Things that go bump in the night!'   If you want to follow my story from the...

The Grand Opening #5

...ng stones across it. But even though we cleared a lot of weeds, the outskirts of the gardens were still very overgrown as well as the woods which had once had lovely pathways through them where Victorian ladies and gentlemen took their afternoon strolls. This is how the yew hedges once looked   We soon got used to having people wandering around our house, although they weren’t allowed upstairs. Gavin and I were quite the little monkeys and usually involved our little brother in our tricks too. We would hang over the balcony near the stairs and watch people walk by then drop things near them or make funny noises. Once Gavin was holding an ice cream and...

Eat, drink and be merry! #10

...ng apples across the room, instead of eating them with their cheese. Then four ladies stood on the tables and started dancing and provocatively swinging their scarves around. The silver armour, which was hanging on the Ballroom walls, was knocked off and people were trying it on for fun. It was complete mayhem! And just to add to the madness, halfway through the evening I had my big acting moment when I ran from one end of the room to the other with a bear chasing after me, while I screamed the house down (don’t worry, it was a man in costume!). Eventually people calmed down a bit when the coffee was served and watched Dave the fire-eater do his performance. B...

Here Comes the Bride (Part 1) #32

...vicarage across the road from my house and booked the date. The vicar told us in no uncertain terms that he would expect us to be there when the banns were read. However, as we never got up before lunch on a Sunday, try as we might, we never actually managed to hear our own banns being read! It was almost as bad at the wedding rehearsal. I went to the church with my dad and the two bridesmaids but Kev never managed to get there as he was fitting a shower for someone! I don’t think the vicar was very impressed with us! The nearer it got to our wedding date the more we worried about my mum turning up. It wasn’t that I didn’t want her there but that my dad...

Mediaeval Mayhem! #13

...ng apples across the room, instead of eating them with their cheese. Then four ladies stood on the tables and started dancing and provocatively swinging their scarves around. The silver armour, which was hanging on the Ballroom walls, was knocked off and people were trying it on for fun. It was complete mayhem! And just to add to the madness, halfway through the evening I had my big acting moment when I ran from one end of the room to the other with a bear chasing after me, while I screamed the house down (don’t worry, it was a man in costume!). Eventually people calmed down a bit when the coffee was served and watched Dave the fire-eater do his performance. B...