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Anyone for Tennis? #96
Posted by Viv Wilson on 25th June 2025 in Growing Up In a Stately Home | hoar cross hall spa hotel,barons eden,wimbledon,all england lawn tennis and croquet club,downton abbey,History,Period drama,Meynell,queen mother,tennis court,mediaval,Henry VIII,hampton court,Ballroom,Balls
...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 Clu...
A Home fit for a King #21
Posted by Viv Wilson on 17th September 2022 in Growing Up In a Stately Home | hoar cross hall,Buckingham Palace,The Crown,The Monarchy,King Charles III,prince of wales,duchy of cornwall,Queen Victoria,Downton Abbey,william the conqueror
...In 1531, Henry VIII acquired the Hospital of St James, which became St James' Palace and in 1536 he took the Manor of Ebury from Westminster Abbey. These transfers brought the site of Buckingham Palace back into royal hands for the first time since William the Conqueror had given it away almost 500 years earlier. Although it seemed to be a very glamorous place to live it apparently had a few design faults and only the state rooms were gilded and colourful. It was reported that the chimneys smoked so much that the fires had to be damped down thus making the palace quite cold. Ventilation was so bad that the interior smelled and when gas lamps were installed, the...
Hoar Cross Hall meets Downton Abbey #99
Posted by Viv Wilson on 24th September 2025 in Growing Up In a Stately Home | hoar cross hall spa hotel,barons eden,downton abbey,Highclere Castle,Bishop of Winchester,first world war,Great War,meynell ingram,Shropshire,Leicestershire,Derbyshire,History,period drama,Servants,Suffragettes,my dad bought a mansion,Earl of Carnarvon,Tomb of Tutankhamun,Eqyptologist,Lord Grantham
...mation 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 m...
Becoming A Rock Chick! #17
Posted by Viv Wilson on 1st February 1975 in Early Days | rock chick,hoar cross hall,doobie brothers,steely dan,steelers wheel,the who,keith moon,easy rider,uttoxeter,burton on trent,hippy,college
...BECOMING A ROCK CHICK: My schooldays were coming to an end now and I absolutely couldn’t wait to leave. The school itself was an old Victorian grammar school which still had wooden desks with inkwells in them! Even the teachers wore their mortar boards and gowns, not like the ones at Eton and Harrow – mine were more like the ones in the Beano!
However, in the last two years there I had made a few good friends and we would go into Uttoxeter every lunch time to meet up with a group of guys that worked at the local JCB firm. They were all into motor bikes and one of the first films I watched was ‘Easy Rider’. They also went to a lot of concerts...Becoming a rock chick #18
Posted by Viv Wilson on 18th February 2019 in Growing Up In a Stately Home | hoar cross hall,easy rider,new year\'s eve,The Who,Dr Feelgood,burton on trent,steelers wheel,doobie brothers
...BECOMING A ROCK CHICK: My schooldays were coming to an end now and I absolutely couldn’t wait to leave. The school itself was an old Victorian grammar school in Uttoxeter which still had wooden desks with inkwells in them! Even the teachers wore their mortar boards and gowns just like the ones at Eton and Harrow – or the Beano! However, in the last two years there I had made a few good friends and we would go into town every lunch time to meet up with a group of guys that worked at the local J. C. Bamford firm. They were all into motor bikes and one of the first films I watched was ‘Easy Rider’. They also went to a lot of concerts...
Huntin', Shootin' and Fishin' #6
Posted by Viv Wilson on 30th May 2021 in Growing Up In a Stately Home | hoar cross hall,Meynell,Hunting,shooting,fishing,carp pond,gun,brace of pheasants
...tarted by Henry VIII when guns became easier to handle back around 1500 and continues to this day although some have now changed to clay pigeon shooting. On a good day they could bag anything up to 300 birds! The shooting season was from October through to February and every year the local ‘shoot’ would come to the Hall to bag a few birds. I think there was an arrangement with the Meynells that they could still come and shoot on our land when we bought the house. A gamekeeper used to breed the pheasants in some sheds in the woods and I remember seeing him there and looking at the little chicks. It seemed incredible to us that someone would raise chicks to gr...