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Rags to Riches #14

...rrived in England from Jamaica. He was a weight lifter and turned the works into a gym and weight training centre. He went on to win medals in the 1960 and 1964 Olympics and also won four world titles, four European titles and broke four world records! In 2018 he was added to the Derby Walk of Fame and has a star on the pavement there which was unveiled by his son the same year. The entrance to the old  alabaster works now   After the First World War the market places were full of tea chests with swords and guns from the Boer War and the First World War. My dad found all this stuff fascinating and started collecting it when he about 12 years old. It sta...

The War Years and Beyond #40

...Church of England in the early 1990s, the first and only twins to have done so at that time.  Ironically the house became a Hotel and Spa in 1990 with a swimming pool in exactly the same location as where the monks were going to put theirs! And so onto 1970 when my family bought the Hall. Apparently my dad had seen a notice about the contents sale of Dr Gillies in 1963, and had shown an interest in the Hall back then. I imagine my mother said ‘No’ as she had two small children at that time! Mrs Meynell had kept his phone number and rang him up in 1969 to see if he was still interested in buying the Hall after the monks had left. This time he said �...

Rags to Riches #15

...rrived in England from Jamaica. He was a weight lifter and turned the works into a gym and weight training centre. He went on to win medals in the 1960 and 1964 Olympics and also won four world titles, four European titles and broke four world records! In 2018 he was added to the Derby Walk of Fame and has a star on the pavement there which was unveiled by his son in  2019. After the First World War the market places were full of tea chests with swords and guns from the Boer War and the First World War. My dad found all this stuff fascinating and started collecting it when he about 12 years old. It started a life-long interest in antiques, culminating in him o...

The Graveyard Shift #23

...in rural England!   Don’t miss next week’s exciting instalment:    'Whodunit in the Library?'   If you would like to follow my story from the beginning, click here and please feel free to share with your friends.   Please subscribe to  my youtube channel and follow me around my childhood home where I bring my blogs to life!  Click here for the tour.  ...

The War Years and Beyond #39

...Church of England in the early 1990s, the first and only twins to have done so at that time. The  monks' plans for the Hall   Ironically the house became a Hotel and Spa in 1990 with a swimming pool in exactly the same location as where the monks were going to put theirs! And so onto 1970 when my family bought the Hall. Apparently my dad had seen a notice about the contents sale of Dr Gillies in 1963, and had shown an interest in the Hall back then. I imagine my mother said ‘No’ as she had two small children at that time! Mrs Meynell had kept his phone number and rang him up in 1969 to see if he was still interested in buying the Hall after the mon...

Royal visitors at Hoar Cross Hall #10

...tours of England including Yorkshire, Derbyshire and the West Midlands, visiting mines and factories. They also visited the wounded in hospitals during the First World War which were often makeshift ones in stately homes such as Clandon Park in Surrey and Belton House in Lincolnshire. Hundreds of Britain's stately homes were turned into military hospitals as the country fast ran out of hospital beds when hundreds of thousands of wounded soldiers returned home. The Meynell family themselves offered their London home to be used during the first world war but it was not needed in the end.  During the King and Queen's tours they would have stopped at nearby state...