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Skools out for summer #13

...a bit of history'   If you would like to follow my story from the beginning please click here and feel free to share with your friends.   Check out my 'Tour of the Hall' - click here to follow me around my childhood home and subscribe to my youtube channel.  ...

Moving On #33

...few more history ones and there will soon be lots more photos added to the blog website. In 2000 we moved down to Devon to start a new chapter in our lives, running restaurants and festivals and creating a whole new bunch of stories! For years we have been telling people all about my eccentric family and the crazy life we lived at the Hall, especially during the divorce, which is why I decided to write this blog.  I would like to dedicate it to the memory of my parents, without whom this story would not have been possible.  Against all the odds, they went out on a limb to buy this amazing old house and try to do something with it.  Thank goodness for peop...

The Schoolroom Maid's Story

...THE SCHOOLROOM MAID’S STORY:       For the first 75 years of the 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...

Hoar Cross Hall - a bit of history #14

...Hoar Cross was part of Needwood Forest, the 11th century lands of Henry de Ferrers. The land was passed down to Henry’s son and subsequent various people over the course of 500 years ending with the Webb family, around the 1730s, who bought the land and house known as the Manor of the Cross. This was quite a large house built on a hill near Yoxall (which is the village next to Hoar Cross). In 1740 the manor house was demolished and later the Hon. Charles Talbot bought the estate for £17,000. Eventually it was sold to Hugo Meynell, who already owned huge amounts of property all over the county. This branch of the Meynell family originated from Leicestershire,...

Rags to Riches #15

...n art and history. Her name is Wendy and my dad did a sculpture of her head and shoulders calling it ‘Schoolgirl with plaits’. For years it stood on show in the Library of the Hall until it was given to Wendy some years ago after my father died.   Wendy with her sculpture 'Schoolgirl with plaits'   In the mid 1950s my dad sold the alabaster works to Louis Martin, who had just arrived in England from Jamaica. He was a weight lifter and turned the works into a gym and weight training centre. He went on to win medals in the 1960 and 1964 Olympics and also won four world titles, four European titles and broke four world records! In 2018 he was added to...

Hoar Cross Hall - Life Below Stairs #35

...This week I’ve done a history blog about the servants who lived at Hoar Cross Hall from the 1870s to the 1950s when the Hall became empty. They were an essential part of keeping a big house running but were often not appreciated by the aristocracy as they went about their day to day duties. The life of a servant in Victorian times was a hard one. They had to rise at 5am to clean and light all the fires and dust and polish the floors, then do a day’s work, often not getting to bed much before midnight. No wonder they didn’t live to a great age in those days! By the end of the 19th century there were nearly one and a half million servants; most young girls...