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Hoar Cross Hall - a bit of history #14

...her local vicar on trips with her so they could hold services for her and the crew. Every spring she would go on a cruise around the Mediterranean and 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 and it looks as though they travelled around the British Empire quite a lot judging from t...

Whodunit in the Library #24

...ached the vicarage across the road. The vicar answered my knock and told me that my dad had collapsed on his doorstep earlier that day and was now in the local cottage hospital!   The (almost) 'murder' weapon   So now it had come to this. I later found out that my dad had gone into the Library to rip up and sabotage the mediaeval banquet costumes and my mum had found him there – an argument had ensued which became violent. My dad had an awful temper and would sometimes attack my mum during these rows (I once found him in the kitchen with his hands round my mum’s throat) so she had grabbed the nearest thing to her, which was the truncheon, and hit h...

Hoar Cross Hall - a bit of history #17

...her local vicar on trips with her so they could hold services for her and the crew. Every spring she would go on a cruise around the Mediterranean and 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 photograph below. One of Emily's paintings   So that the M...

Whodunit in the Library #24

...ached the vicarage across the road. The vicar answered my knock and told me that my dad had collapsed on his doorstep earlier that day and was now in the local cottage hospital! The 'weapon' which was covered in blood   So now it had come to this. I later found out that my dad had gone into the Library to rip up and sabotage the mediaeval banquet costumes and my mum had found him there – an argument had ensued which became violent. My dad had an awful temper and would sometimes attack my mum during these rows (I once found him in the kitchen with his hands round my mum’s throat) so she had grabbed the nearest thing to her, which was the truncheon, an...

The Tax Man Cometh #29

...with the vicar who we had had such a fall out with when we were youngsters, when we had lit all the candles in the church one day to brighten it up. I hoped he didn’t remember! I also hoped he didn’t know that it was Gavin and I who had sabotaged the many Christmas and Easter high teas at the vicarage after the church services, when we would take the sandwiches apart and put them back together in a different order! The vicarage at Hoar Cross We also had the added problem of my parents – my dad had to give me away so he had to be there, but my mum would surely want to see me married too, even if we weren’t really on speaking terms. Where would we s...

Hoar Cross Hall - A bit of History #54

...her local vicar on trips with her so they could hold services for her and the crew. Every spring she would go on a cruise around the Mediterranean and 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 and we found a huge collection of photographs in the Library from those times.   Althoug...