Story Search Results

Here Comes the Bride (Part 2) # 28

And so our wedding day at Hoar Cross Hall arrived bright and clear, all thoughts of solicitors, legals, fights and arrests behind us! Myself and my bridesmaids went to get our hair done in the morning and Kev slapped a piece of steak on his jaw to bring the swelling down after the rather unfortunate fight at his stag do. Fortunately, the bruise didn’t show up too much on the photos! Gavin drove my dad’s Mercedes Benz car all the way down the drive and back up the road to the church – this was one of the drawbacks of having a church in your grounds; you don’t get a nice long drive through the town where everyone can see you! Never mind, a small crowd of l...

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

Here is another ghost story for the Christmas season associated with Hoar Cross Hall. By an amazing co-incidence Lewis Carroll and Emily Meynell (who built the Hall) became acquainted when she was a child. This is their story - In 1865 Lewis Carroll wrote another story about Alice following on from ‘Alice in Wonderland’. It was called ‘Alice through the Looking Glass’. In this story Alice climbs onto the mantlepiece over the fireplace in her lounge and finds that she can climb through the mirror into another world which is reversed, just like a reflection. Once again, she encounters strange figures in a world dominated by a chess set and nursery rhyme c...

The Schoolroom Maid's Story #36

For the first 75 years of Hoar Cross Hall’s history about 50 servants were employed by the Meynell family in the house and grounds. Among these was a young girl of fifteen who started work in 1920 as a Schoolroom Maid. Her name was Miss Inez Sophia Large and she had connections to Hoar Cross through her grand-parents, William and Mary Tooth, who lived in the village where William was the blacksmith; his smithy was just along from the Meynell public house. He had worked on the ironwork of the Hall during its construction in the 1860s. Inez’s aunt, Constance Madeley, was the wife of the landlord at the Buffalo Inn, in nearby Newborough, and it was through her...

What the Butler Saw! #37

Anyone who’s seen Downton Abbey will remember Carter the butler. He is exactly how a butler would have been in the 19th century and, strangely enough, the butler at Hoar Cross Hall during the early part of the 20th century was also called Carter! Although most big houses had a house steward who was in charge of accounts and general running of the household, a butler was more commonly engaged by the wealthy. He was usually a grand, authoritarian figure, commanding respect and awe and most of the servants would have been scared to death of upsetting him! He was dressed like a gentleman of the period and generally ran the household with an iron fist. As I said,...

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...