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The Kitchen Maid's Story #37

THE KITCHEN MAID’S STORY:    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 ta...

More Tea Vicar? #12

....   Mrs Meynell Ingram commissioned Bodley to commence work on the church in 1872 in memory of her husband who had died the previous year.  It was generally regarded as one of the finest Victorian churches in the country and was known locally as the “Cathedral of the Midlands”.  It was indeed a huge church (for a village) and always open to the public so we  would sometimes go and have a look inside.  On one occasion there was no-one around so Gavin and I lit all the candles in the church as we thought it looked really pretty and brightened the place up a bit.  Oh dear – that was definitely not the right thing to do!  A strongly worded letter was s...

Moving On #35

...ox in the Meynell Ingram Arms car park! He told my dad that he was hiding behind a bush and could he come and get him. Of course, my dad was only too happy to fetch him and get him away from my mum and the singer and he set off to find him hiding, as he had said, behind a bush in the darkened car park. Piers continued to live with my dad and he joined in with the go karting along with Gavin and also got very involved with BMX stunts, even having a half pipe in their yard to practice on! After a couple of years my dad moved to a much bigger house in Burton which had been an old doctors’ surgery that Kev and his family had gone to when Kev was young, ironically...

More Tea Vicar? #12

...gels. Mrs Meynell Ingram commissioned Bodley to commence work on the church in 1872 in memory of her husband who had died the previous year. It was generally regarded as one of the finest Victorian churches in the country and was known locally as the “Cathedral of the Midlands”. It was indeed a huge church (for a village) and always open to the public so we would sometimes go and have a look inside. On one occasion there was no-one around so Gavin and I lit all the candles in the church as we thought it looked really pretty and brightened the place up a bit. Oh dear – that was definitely not the right thing to do! A strongly worded letter was sent to my da...

The life and times of an upper class family #44

...On 11th August 1863, Hugo Francis Meynell Ingram married the Hon. Emily Charlotte, daughter of Sir Charles Wood, Bart, afterwards 1st Viscount Halifax. The Woods were an old gentry family, for many centuries respectable York merchants. They were later to turn grand upon the discovery of coal beneath their ancestral estates. This was the great Barnsley field, with several hundred acres of Britain's deepest and finest coal. Sir Charles Wood was created 1st Viscount Halifax in 1866 and had a very distinguished political career. The family seats of Garrowby, Pocklington and Hickleton (where Emily was born) had been acquired by his father from the Wentworth family; t...

A Christmas Celebration #74

...The final festive story is here based on true events and people that lived at Hoar Cross Hall.  “Come on, look sharp!” shouted Cook to her assistants in the kitchen.  “We’ve got a load of cooking to do for the Christmas party at the weekend and if you don’t get a move on there’ll be nothing to eat!” The kitchen maids looked at each other, stopped their gossiping and started to move a bit quicker.  Cook could be quite intimidating when she was in one of her moods.  The table was laden with pastries, jellies and fruit and the girls were just putting the finishing touches to the gingerbread biscuits before starting on the blancmange. “I love...