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Royal Visitors at Hoar Cross Hall #49

With the King's Coronation looming on 6th May in the UK, I thought I'd do some royal family related articles this month starting with royal visitors at the Hall in the 1920s. I also have a book called Queen Alexandra's Christmas Gift Book which was left in the Library and shows personal photos from her own camera which she took of the royal family between 1900-1910 -  a rare insight indeed into what the royals did in their leisure time!  I will be sharing these photos over the next month leading up to the Coronation and hope you find them as fascinating as I do. Royal Visitors From earliest times the king's court has travelled around the kingdom so the king...

Meet the Neighbours - Blithfield Hall #78

This month I start a brand new series on stately Homes local to Hoar Cross Hall and the first one is Blithfield Hall, which was probably the nearest stately Home neighbour to Hoar Cross Hall and had been privately owned by the Bagot family since the 14th century.  The house, which is Grade I listed, is situated between Rugeley and Abbots Bromley and is about 6 miles from the Hall.  I remember calling round with my parents once to see Nancy, Lady Bagot, and admiring the goats they had roaming around the nearby fields.  Blithfield Hall is known as the Home of a breed of goat, the Bagot goat, which for several hundred years have lived semi-wild on the estate....

Gardeners World at Hoar Cross #43

...rm called Home Farm.  This was quite a common thing with stately Homes as the Farm supplied the house and staff with all the produce that they needed. The carp pool provided fish and the regular pheasant shoots provided game for the table. All very self sufficient! In addition to the Farm workers and gardeners were all sorts of other workers on the estate: a stone mason, brick makers, foresters and thatchers, carpenters, a joiner, plumber and an electrician. They looked after the maintenance of the house and workers’ cottages, and the tenanted properties. The carp pond in front of the greenhouses   If the butler was an important figure inside the hous...

Moving Out #32

...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...

Moving On - the end of an era #33

...After ten years of growing up in a stately Home (Hoar Cross Hall), I have come to the end of my story. After my parents’ divorce it was agreed that my mum bought out my dad's half of the house and he had to leave his dream Home forever. He and Gavin moved out to live in Burton-on-Trent and my mum carried on running Mediaeval Banquets for a few more years. She and the singer eventually got together much to my dad’s chagrin. The singer spent a lot more time at the Hall helping my mum run the banquets; however, Piers didn’t really get on with him. When he was about 14 years old my dad received a phone call from Piers – he had run away from Home and was ring...

The War Years and Beyond #36

...During the Second World War, life in country houses changed dramatically. It was no different at Hoar Cross Hall. The flower borders on the main lawns were turfed over to reduce maintenance and vegetables were grown in areas formerly restricted to flowers. Evacuees from Birmingham came to stay for the duration of the war and they lived in the basement, as it was considered to be the safest place. I imagine that they must have been in the care of the servants as they were living amongst them but it must also have been quite exciting for them to move from a bombed out city to the relative safety of the countryside, although they must have missed their parents of c...