Story Category: Blogging (5 posts)

Viv Wilson | 18th November 2022 | Life at The Hall

My parents’ court case was finally over and my dad had six months to leave the family home, Hoar Cross Hall. In the meantime my mum had to find the funds to buy him out and he had to find another house to live in. He also had an awful lot of stuff to move too! He eventually found a house in nearby Burton-on-Trent but as it was obviously a lot smaller he had to get rid of a lot of his possessions and one of the first things to go was his Lotus Elite. He advertised it in the local paper but instead of getting a phone call from a likely buyer, the first call was from the local tax office. Back in those days they used to check advertisements in the newspapers and they had spotted this expensive car for sale and thought they would check it out The Lotus that caused so much trouble! They actually thought it was my mum’s car and it transpired that they were keeping an eye on her. They didn’t know that my parents were getting a divorce so when they spoke to my dad he quickly informed them of that fact and told them that this was why he was selling his car. He also told them that she was making a lot of money from the banquets; money which he had no access to. This then led to a few meetings between the tax man and my dad. Of course, my dad was in his element thinking of more ways to get his revenge on my mum! What better way than to shop her to the tax people. He knew that she didn’t tell them exactly how many guests came to the banquets each week. It was usually around 200-240 but I think the tax office were told slightly less than that! My dad was happy to tell them that my mum always did the book-keeping as he was useless at that sort of thing and so he feigned ignorance!I have always kept a diary and during the time of the banquets I used to keep accurate records of how many people came along to them. When I told this to my dad he jumped up and down in glee and quickly informed the tax office! A meeting was arranged with them and I went along with my d...

Viv Wilson | 11th November 2018 | Life at The Hall

THE GRAND OPENING: And so we move into 1971 and the preparation of the Hall so we could open it to the public by Easter. During the run up to buying the house my dad had been buying furniture, carpets and paintings like crazy and I remember our previous home being jam packed with chaise longues, sideboards and carved chests as well as all the suits of armour that he already had. This furniture was now set out in all the rooms. My mum’s collection of Victorian costumes were on display in the Ballroom as well as my dad’s collection of silver plated ‘display’ armour, which hung around the panelled walls; the suits of armour and the many paintings they had lined the Long Gallery and other rooms. The old Dining Room was renamed The Chinese Room as my dad had quite a collection of Chinese armour, swords and wall hangings – and even a Burmese Palace Chair. Display cabinets bought in sale rooms showed off smaller items. The biggest excitement though was seeing our house advertised on the local TV channel! The Damask Room was turned into Lady Dorothy’s Boudoir complete with an 18th century four poster bed, an original bed complete with canopy and hanging curtains slept in by aristocrats throughout the centuries. I used to love lying on the bed with the curtains closed imagining myself in another era – once I lay down on the bed and fell asleep. When I awoke and climbed out from behind the drapes it was to a roomful of visitors staring open mouthed at me! In another room my dad had his racing car surrounded by displays and photos of his racing career. The Entrance Hall was turned into a café area next to the kitchen, which had once been the old Butler’s Pantry, and my job was to bake scones and make sandwiches for the hungry visitors and groups that often came for a day out. Although I would make the scones earlier in the day, we would always leave a few in the oven so that there was a lovely smell of home baking floating around the place �...

Viv Wilson | 04th November 2018 | Life at The Hall

REFURBISHING OUR MANSION : We moved into the Hall during the summer holidays and my parents quickly realised that they had a lot of work on their hands to make the place habitable as well as to earn some money from it. As previously mentioned, there was an East Wing and a West Wing to the house. My dad decided to convert the first floor rooms of each wing into three separate apartments; he had done this at our previous house. This would generate income from rents until we got the main house open to the public. It wasn’t a big job to convert the rooms as the East Wing had four main rooms and two bathrooms already there, which would have been used as guest bedrooms in Victorian times. He made these into two one-bedroom apartments with a bit of stud walling here and there and made small kitchens in the spaces which connected the lounge and bedroom, probably once used as cupboard space. The spiral staircase with it’s green baize door opened onto the inner landing next to the apartments and this is how the servants would have accessed these rooms when bringing the family breakfast trays in the mornings. Where children were to be seen and not heard, servants were to be neither seen nor heard by members of the family and all the areas to the house were accessed via the spiral staircases and then inner hallways and corridors so they could go about their duties quickly and quietly. My dad spent a lot of his time at auction houses buying and selling antiques and so he went back there again to source carpets and kitchen equipment. He also installed huge electric heaters to keep our new tenants warm. The West Wing was smaller than the East Wing so was made into a two-bedroomed apartment. The tenants entered the house through the basement entrance and used the spiral staircases to get to their homes – so they were a bit like the servants of old, neither seen nor heard by us! The next change to make was to our own rooms so we could move downstairs and hav...

Viv Wilson | 28th October 2018 | Life at The Hall

THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT! Going to sleep in a big old house is quite scary when you’re young but going to sleep in a big old house that’s haunted is even more scary!! That first winter at the Hall was like that. Every time there was a windy night I could hear a window banging in the attic – all night long it kept me awake. The next day I would go upstairs to close it but there would be no windows open or even loose. They were all tightly shut as they had been for 20 years. I remember standing there in the attic rooms, the hairs prickling the back of my neck and quickly legging it back downstairs! On other nights I would hear people walking along the attic corridor (the attic was the floor right above our bedroom floor) and then at other times I could hear heavy furniture being dragged about – yet there was nothing up there as the rooms were all empty! Other members of the family heard it too and also people that stayed overnight, so it wasn’t the imaginings of a frightened child. There was also nobody else in the house at that point, apart from our family and they definitely weren’t walking about the house at 3am. I loved reading about old houses, mysteries and ghosts but when you’re actually in the middle of it in real life, it’s a bit different! My parents also heard noises from their bedroom. It sounded like a room full of people talking, like at a party. They couldn’t work out if it was birds nesting under the eaves so they slept in another room down the corridor to see if they still heard it – and sure enough, they did! What was going on? Had we disturbed some lost souls forever wandering in the attics? One night my mum was woken up by the sight of a little girl ‘floating’ over the bed. She said the girl was wearing a long nightdress and mop cap and seemed to be stretching her arms out to my mum as if she was asking for help. She floated all around the bed scaring my mum half to death. Frantically sh...

Viv Wilson | 07th June 2018 | Life at The Hall

Hi everyone I've just seen that a few people have been reading this blog from 2018, but discovered that the YouTube video was missing as the link was to the original post that unbelievably somehow got deleted with all those views (47,000) :( Anyway, I've just updated the link to the re-uploaded video, so this isn't a new post for this week, but just so it works for anyone reading it now for the first time! - Don't miss tomorrows blog - The Kitchen Maid's Story! <><><><><><><><><><><><><>><><><><><><><><><><><><><<> I recently returned to my old home, Hoar Cross Hall, to make a video of the house to show you what it looks like now. First of all I wish to thank the current owners and mangement for allowing me to do this, and also I have to say how pleased I was to find that the main house is not much different to how it was when I lived there! However, it was especially pleasing to see how amazing the gardens now look, much how they would have done back in the Victorian times! I really enjoyed visiting the house again and hope the video tour will bring my blogs to life as you follow me around! Enjoy the vlog……. Don't forget to subscribe to my channel!...