Story Search Results

More Tea Vicar? #12

...all went across the road to the vicarage for tea and biscuits. There was always plenty of other food too so we were happy to go on special occasions. However, the people that attended the church were all incredibly old (or so it seemed to us) and very posh and well spoken so for some reason this would set our minds to impish thoughts! We decided to swap all the sandwiches round one time, putting different tops to different bottoms; we also licked all the ‘cream’ out of the custard creams and other similar type biscuits then put them back together on the plates. We would watch with great delight from a short distance away while old men and ladies in fancy ha...

Gardeners World at Hoar Cross #43

...e brought across to decorate the main rooms when an important function was on. The ‘bothy’ house was in one corner of the kitchen garden. (A bothy is a simple dwelling on an estate, usually used for gardeners and other workmen). Here lived the ‘bothy boys’ who were young under-gardeners. Their job was simply to sweep the pathways all day and keep the leaves at bay! The 'bothy boys'   There were two elderly chaps, Mr Knight and Mr Dukes, who were solely responsible for the south garden – however, their task was complicated by the fact that they couldn’t get on with one another! Grass was cut by a horse drawn mower, a task carried out by the...

THE GRAND OPENING #5

...ng stones across it.  But even though we cleared a lot of weeds, the outskirts of the gardens were still very overgrown as well as the woods which had once had lovely pathways through them where Victorian ladies and gentlemen took their afternoon strolls.  Family picture from the hall brochure 1971 We soon got used to having people wandering around our house, although they weren’t allowed upstairs.  Gavin and I were quite the little monkeys and usually involved our little brother in our tricks too.  We would hang over the balcony near the stairs and watch people walk by then drop things near them or make funny noises. Once Gavin was holding an ice cr...

Hoar Cross Hall - a bit of history! #14

...sometimes across to the Netherlands and Germany.  She loved painting and would spend much of her time doing water colours along with collecting beautiful objects to decorate the Hall and the Church of the Holy Angels.  In 1890 she went on a painting trip up the Nile on her yacht and filled 10 books of diaries and logs, all illustrated with her drawings and photographs.  There were many more trips that the Meynells went on as you can see from the photographs which we found in the Library.  Although I’m not sure where they were taken exactly, it looks as though they travelled around Africa quite a lot. Some original photo's from the Meynell's early 20th cen...

Hoar Cross Hall - a bit of history #15

...sometimes across to the Netherlands and Germany.  She loved painting and would spend much of her time doing water colours along with collecting beautiful objects to decorate the Hall and the Church of the Holy Angels.  In 1890 she went on a painting trip up the River Nile on her yacht and filled 10 books of diaries and logs, all illustrated with her drawings and photographs.  There were many more trips that the Meynells went on as you can see from the photographs which we found in the Library.  Although I’m not sure where they were taken exactly, it looks as though they travelled around the British Empire quite a lot.   Banana sellers in Africa  c1...

Hoar Cross Hall - Life below stairs #20

...uld bring across masses of palms and pot plants to decorate the rooms.  Home Farm supplied the estate with as much produce as was needed.  In addition to the farm workers, the estate employed bricklayers, a stone mason, foresters and thatchers, carpenters, a joiner, a plumber and an electrician.  They looked after the Hall and the workers’ cottages and all tenanted properties.  The head gardener had a lot of authority outside the house and even the mistress would have to seek his permission first before entering the nursery gardens! Around Christmas time, all the staff and local trades’ people who supplied the house, were invited to a party held in the...