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Moving On - the end of an era #33

...we had a wedding lunch the next day at the Hall plus a tour of all the rooms new and old. It was quite fascinating to see the spa and treatment rooms which are now in the  basement. The pool is in the old Servants Hall which in turn became my dad’s workshop and the treatment rooms are in other parts of the old servants’ quarters – it was barely recognisable! In 2005 we went back again with my mum and two of our children, Lee and Hannah. Again, it was great fun to explore the house and grounds and show my children where I had lived as a child. I was particularly fascinated to see the attic rooms as these had always looked so spooky and were obviously hau...

The Kitchen Maid's Tale #41

...on their wedding day - this was to show their purity no doubt.  They would be taken to a flurry of parties to meet eligible young men in the hope that they would make a good marriage.  This could go on for up to three years for a debutante and she would wear different colours each year to show her ensuing sophistication - white for the first year, black for the second year and red for the third year.  In 1958 Queen Elizabeth II announced that she would no longer have debutantes presented at court and although balls carried on for a number of years, they gradually died out in the 1970s.   A debutante arrives for the Ball in her Rolls Royce   Once th...

Moving Out#32

...MOVING OUT:    And so the day arrived a month or so after our wedding when my dad had to leave the 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 a...

Moving On #33

...we had a wedding lunch the next day at the Hall plus a tour of all the rooms new and old.  It was quite fascinating to see the spa and treatment rooms which are now in the old basement.  The pool is in the old Servants Hall, which in turn became my dad’s workshop, and the treatment rooms are in other parts of the old servants’ quarters – it was barely recognisable!  In 2005 we went back again with my mum and two of our children, Lee and Hannah.  Again, it was great fun to explore the house and grounds and show my children where I had lived as a child.  I was particularly fascinated to see the attic rooms as these had always looked so spooky and were...

What the butler saw!

...r Diamond wedding anniversary in 1972. However, when at the Hall his main duties would have been looking after the wine cellar and silverware or plate as it was known.  This was kept in a room next to his bedroom so he could keep an eye on it and make sure no-one stole anything.  Similarly with the wine cellar, he would have kept it all under lock and key so none of the servants could have a crafty drink when no-one was looking.  He also waited on table at all the meals and at night, secured all doors and windows and checked the fires were safe before retiring to bed.  If there was no valet in the house then the butler would also have been responsible for l...

Moving Out #32

...MOVING OUT:       And so the day arrived a month or so after our wedding when my dad had to leave the 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 st...