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Here Comes the Bride (Part 1) #29

HERE COMES THE BRIDE (Part 1)     After the court case my dad was given 3 months to move out of Hoar Cross Hall. We had decided to bring our wedding forward so that we could get married in the Church of the Holy Angels in the grounds and then have the reception afterwards in the Hall, which was after all our family home. The wedding preparations were going quite well and as we knew lots of musicians it wasn’t hard to find a local band and a DJ to do the disco. A friend of my dad’s offered to do the catering and the bar was set up with plenty of kegs from the local brewery in Burton on Trent. I had two bridesmaids and we all went to Birmingham one day to c...

Moving On - the end of an era #32

MOVING ON – THE END OF AN ERA:       And so, after ten years of growing up and living in a stately home, I have come to the end of my story. After my parents’ divorce it was agreed that my mum bought out my dad's half of the house and he had to leave his dream home forever. He and Gavin moved out to live in Burton-on-Trent and my mum carried on running Mediaeval Banquets for a few more years. She and the singer eventually got together much to my dad’s chagrin. The singer spent a lot more time at the Hall helping my mum run the banquets; however, Piers didn’t really get on with him. When he was about 14 years old my dad received a phone call from Pier...

Doing up a stately home #4

DOING UP A stately home:     We moved into Hoar Cross Hall during the summer holidays and my parents quickly realised that they had a lot of work on their hands to make the place habitable as well as to earn some money from it. As previously mentioned, there was an East Wing and a West Wing to the house. My dad decided to convert the first floor rooms of each wing into three separate apartments; he had done this at our previous house. This would generate income from rents until we got the main house open to the public. It wasn’t a big job to convert the rooms as the East Wing had four main rooms and two bathrooms already there, which would have been used as...

Ventures New #9

...gally for stately home owners! In fact, he bought a suit of armour for my mum’s birthday present once, saying it was better to spend their money on an investment rather than flowers that would wither and die! I don’t think my mum was very impressed! Another time he bought an ancient Japanese funeral urn to put on display in the Chinese Room – to make it seem more authentic he filled it with ashes from the fireplace and placed a few animal bones in for good measure! The display sign read that it was the remains of a Samurai Warrior from the Far East! One Easter we decided to hire a small steam train to give rides to the families that came. It was set up on...

Here Comes the Bride (Part 1) #32

...HERE COMES THE BRIDE (Part 1):   Now my dad was having to move out of the Hall we had decided to bring our wedding forward so that we could get married in the church in the grounds (the Church of the Holy Angels) and then have the reception afterwards in the Hall, which was after all our family home. The wedding preparations were going quite well and as we knew lots of musicians it wasn’t hard to find a local band and a DJ to do the disco. A friend of my dad’s offered to do the catering and the bar was set up with plenty of kegs from the local brewery in Burton on Trent. I had two bridesmaids and we all went to Birmingham one day to choose our dresses and...

My Dad Bought a Mansion #1

...take on a stately home in the middle of nowhere, or so it seemed to me! It was actually in the middle of Staffordshire but in an incredibly small village, more like a hamlet, with a church, a school, a few cottages and a village pub. The local bus service had just come to an end the month we moved in so there was no public transport either or a village shop! Of course, to us three kids it seemed really exciting moving to this huge house with lots of rooms to play hide and seek in. The gardens were vast and we couldn’t wait to climb trees and make dens in the yew hedges. Pathways led to sunken gardens and ponds with stepping stones and a ha-ha wall bordered the...