Story Search Results

Victorian Society #93

Victorian society was built around Queen Victoria’s reign, loosely between 1820-1914.  It was characterised by a class-based society and Britain being the most powerful empire in the world. Hoar Cross Hall was built in 1870, at the height of the Victorian era, and boasted up to seventy rooms, twenty-five of them for the servants, approximately fifteen for the kitchens and utility areas, leaving around thirty rooms for the family and their guests.  During this time a lot of people, particularly women, went into domestic service and the Housekeeper at the Hall earned about £50 a year, while a housemaid earned £15 a year – quite the difference!  By all ac...

Victorian Fashions #95

The Victorian era was roughly from 1830 – 1900 and saw many changes in fashion styles.  This was the era of technological advancement and the mass production of sewing machines in the 1850s and the advent of synthetic dyes introduced major changes in fashion.  This, coupled with the printing of fashion magazines, allowed the masses to become more fashion conscious – the middle classes were rising up thanks to the Industrial Revolution! Clothes were an expression of your place in society, therefore upper-class women, who didn’t need to work, could wear more elaborate dresses over layers of petticoats with tightly laced corsets.  Men would wear long froc...

An Englishman's Home is his Mansion! #2

...from the Victorian days – still there after all those years!   The Victorian fire ladder   One day whilst on baby sitting duties my little brother went missing in the woods and we were terrified that he might have fallen into the ponds that we’d recently found – a huge search was mounted by everyone and he was eventually found safe and well in another part of the woods. I watched him like a hawk after that! At other times we’d play tennis in the Ballroom – I’m not sure if my parents knew we were doing this but it was good fun while the room was empty – it was incredible that we didn’t do any damage to the large ornamental pieces hangi...

The country house in society #48

...Country houses are to be found throughout the British Isles and are a peculiarly English phenomenon. Houses range from mediaeval manor houses to classical Palladian mansions, elegant Georgian residences to the Gothic buildings of the Victorian era. A great many have survived for two main reasons: Britain has been spared much of the havoc of war and revolution affecting other countries. Wentworth Woodhouse, Yorkshire   Wentworth Woodhouse (above) is one of the largest stately homes in Europe and was visited by King George V and Queen Mary in 1912. It is now with the Wentworth Woodhouse Preservation Trust and is much bigger than this photo shows!   The...

Victorian Courtship - gloves #92

...This is the second blog in the series on Victorian courtship and is all about the use of gloves. During the Victorian era, gloves were deeply connected to the notion of the “perfect hand” which were to be “shapely, finely made, white with blue vein, taper fingers, rosy nails and slightly arched”.  They were seen as social markers and accordingly, ladies wore gloves which were too small for them in order to shrink their hands. Following an old French practice, glove length was traditionally measured in buttons based on the distance between the base of the thumb and the top edge of the glove.  Until Queen Victoria’s reign gloves were quite short.  F...

The haunting of Hoar Cross Hall #15

...ers up in Victorian clothes.  Their mother was helping them and they had a lot of fun pretending to be different characters.  That evening there was a knock on the lounge door upstairs and their mother, Gwynyth, opened it to see a small child standing there. “Is that you Piers?” she asked in astonishment.  She thought the children had dressed him up again for a joke.  “Get back to bed, it’s really late!” The child ran down the bedroom corridor and Gwynyth followed but soon lost sight of him as the light was very dim.  It was as though he had disappeared into thin air.  The double doors at the end of the corridor led to the West Wing apartment b...