Story Search Results

Things that go bump in the Night #3

THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT! Going to sleep in a big old house is quite scary when you’re young but going to sleep in a big old haunted house is even more scary!! That first winter at Hoar Cross Hall was like that. The attic rooms were on the floor above our bedrooms – there were about fifteen rooms which had been used for the servant girls to sleep in. Every time there was a windy night I could hear a window banging in the attic – all night long it kept me awake. The next day I would go upstairs to close it but there would be no windows open or even loose. They were all tightly shut as they had been for 20 years. I remember standing there in those d...

Like Father, Like Sons #20

...  Nowadays Gavin is freelancing in Formula 2 and the endurance series but this still means that he gets to travel all over the world, although not quite like our dad travelled! Of course, it all sounds very glamorous but he usually only gets to see the airport, a hotel and the race track! Still, a lot of people would be happy with that! In the early seventies I became quite interested in rallying and thought that I might like to have a go at that when I left school. I was quite the tomboy in those days and something like that would have suited me well, although it was very much a man’s world back then. My parents took us all to see the annual Lombard RAC...

Moving Out #29

...And so the day arrived a month or so after our wedding when my dad had to leave Hoar Cross Hall. Ten years after moving in he was now moving out, leaving his dream home for my mum to live in alone. Gavin moved with him and Piers was away at school most of the time. It was a mammoth task as he had so much stuff to move, especially from the basement. He had some heavy machinery too that he’d brought with him from his alabaster days, including a band saw which we used to saw up logs for the huge fireplaces in the main rooms. He had bought a house in nearby Burton-on-Trent which had some outbuildings for a workshop and there he moved to start afresh. He carried o...

Alice - the ghost in the mirror #32

...the next day, he was told that no children were staying at the hotel at that time. Again, on a separate occasion, the barman looked into the mirror and saw the child standing behind him but when he turned round she was gone. When author Graham Phillips went to the hall to research the Alice story, he took a photograph of the mirror and many people said they could see a little girls’ face in the bottom left hand corner of it. How strange! Is this the real Alice looking through the glass back at us? What do you think?   Don't miss next week's instalment:  'New Year Jinks'   If you would like to follow my story from the beginning, click here and please...

Gardeners' World #38

...In it’s heyday Hoar Cross Hall had around 28 people employed to keep the 20 acres of grounds tidy and weed free. In Victorian England the most common of all male servants was the gardener. At Hoar Cross the head gardener had numerous under-gardeners known affectionately as ‘digging slaves’! They were responsible for producing fruit, vegetables and growing luxury items in and out of season, much of it under glass. Adjacent to the house was the carp pool and greenhouse area along with a palm house; next to these was a walled kitchen garden (see header picture). This supplied the house with all its fruit, vegetables and herbs. The palm house produced palms an...

Hickleton Hall and the Meynells #43

...in those days. It must have been a bustling household with so many little ones running around keeping the nursemaids on their toes! Hickleton was not as huge as Hoar Cross Hall, probably half the size, but it did still have servants quarters, stables and even a brewhouse. One of the last brewhouses to operate within a country house was at Hickleton. Apparently, payments for staff beer ('beer money') was a further perquisite to their wages. This was, in part, a quaint survival from the days when servants drank beer instead of tea. Many houses had a brewhouse. Beer was particularly important when the water supply was unreliable and unsafe. Servants might enjoy as...