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MOTOR RACING DAYS #9

MOTOR RACING DAYS: Although my blogs are about living at Hoar Cross Hall, I would just like to give a bit of background about my dad’s racing career in the years leading up to moving to the Hall as this will set the scene for later instalments of my story.  As mentioned in my first blog my dad used to be a racing driver but he actually started off racing motor cycles.  He had been a despatch rider in World War 2 in North Africa and after the war ended and he’d recovered from TB he decided to take up racing his bike as a hobby.  As he lived in Derby the nearest track was Donington Park and he raced there at the beginning of the 1950s.  After that he move...

Hoar Cross Hall - a bit of history! #14

HOAR CROSS HALL - A BIT OF HISTORY:  Due to many requests asking about the history of the house, this week I'm taking a break from my family's story to look back a few hundred years of what happened before we lived there!     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...

LET THE BANQUET COMMENCE! #11

LET THE BANQUETS COMMENCE!: It was the end of the summer season and rehearsals had started for the new venture of Mediaeval Banquets.  All the cast would come round to the house each week and my mum and one or two other ladies were busy making the skirts and blouses for the wenches, although the main costumes were bought.   My mum also made about 200 bibs which the guests were going to be wearing as eating five courses with a dagger can be quite messy!   We had a King, a Jester, a Fire-eater, a Halberdier, an organist and various wenches and serving ladies.  To launch the banquets my parents decided to hold a Press Reception about a month before and so we...

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 #15

HOAR CROSS HALL - A BIT OF HISTORY :         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 br...

Becoming a rock chick #18

BECOMING A ROCK CHICK:        My schooldays were coming to an end now and I absolutely couldn’t wait to leave.  The school itself was an old Victorian grammar school in Uttoxeter which still had wooden desks with inkwells in them!  Even the teachers wore their mortar boards and gowns just like the ones at Eton and Harrow – or the Beano!   However, in the last two years there I had made a few good friends and we would go into town every lunch time to meet up with a group of guys that worked at the local J. C. Bamford firm.  They were all into motor bikes and one of the first films I watched was ‘Easy Rider’.  They also went to a lot of concerts...