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A New Year Calamity!

A NEW YEAR CALAMITY!      The New Year’s Eve Balls at the Hall were usually the highlight of the year.  After twelve months of hard work, especially running the Mediaeval Banquets twice a week through the winter, we were always ready to see out the year in style with a big new year party.  In those days it was always black tie for the men and long dresses for the ladies – usually around 500 people bought tickets for an evening of entertainment with a dance band, disco and a meal.  At midnight a man dressed in traditional Scottish regalia, including a kilt and sporran, would pipe in the new year with his bagpipes.  Down the Long Gallery he would slowly...

Midnight pool parties #21

MIDNIGHT POOL PARTIES:        After leaving school I spent a year at Burton-on-Trent Technical College studying to be a secretary but my year at college had come to an end - now to find a job!  It didn’t take too long as there was plenty of employment around in those days and I was soon offered a position with a small engineering firm in Burton.  As I didn’t drive there was still the problem of me getting to work and dad managed to talk the residents of the apartments into taking me, as they were going to Burton every day as well, and it would save him coming out twice a day (no doubt he was thinking about the petrol he would save too!) Kev and the ba...

Panto Pranks! #22

PANTO PRANKS!      During the 1970s Hoar Cross Hall was used from time to time for local community activities and one such event was the production in 1978 of a traditional pantomime, ‘Midnight and a Journey back to Happiness’.   It was written by local people, Robert Leighton from Yoxall and the Hon. Alexandra Meynell, daughter-in-law of Mrs Jean Meynell whom we had purchased the Hall from.  The words and music were written by local songwriter, David Matthews, who had written songs for quite a few pop artists during the 1960s, his most famous being Matt Munro’s ‘We’re gonna change the world’.  So off to a good start there! For those of you w...

Aristocratic travels Part 2

ARISTOCRATIC TRAVELS PART 2:    During the latter part of the 1800s Emily Charlotte Meynell travelled around the Mediterranean on board her schooner, Ariadne, recording her travels in her many diaries and drawing books, as mentioned in my previous blog.  I have now found the photo of her yacht and one of her paintings; she was a skilled water colour artist as you can see but had a particular affection for nautical subjects.  One particular holiday around Nice in the South of France with her brother Charles is documented by the water-colour paintings they both made.  Soon after her husband Hugo's death in 1871, she embarked on a Mediterranean tour with her...

Join Me On A Video Tour Of My Old Home! Hoar Cross Hall

Hi everyone I've just seen that a few people have been reading this blog from 2018, but discovered that the YouTube video was missing as the link was to the original post that unbelievably somehow got deleted with all those views (47,000)  :(  Anyway, I've just updated the link to the re-uploaded video, so this isn't a new post for this week, but just so it works for anyone reading it now for the first time! -  Don't miss tomorrows blog - The Kitchen Maid's Story! <><><><><><><><><><><><><>><><><><><><><><><><><&g...

The War Years and Beyond #39

During the Second World War, life in country houses changed dramatically. It was no different at Hoar Cross Hall. The flower borders on the main lawns were turfed over to reduce maintenance and vegetables were grown in areas formerly restricted to flowers. Evacuees from Birmingham came to stay for the duration of the war and they lived in the basement, as it was considered to be the safest place. I imagine that they must have been in the care of the servants as they were living amongst them but it must also have been quite exciting for them to move from a bombed out city to the relative safety of the countryside, although they must have missed their parents of c...