Story Search Results

More Tea Vicar? #12

...ns of our ghost was buried – the small child whose cries we often heard. She was buried in the churchyard and we had found her grave after hearing the noises and stories about her. I think she was about 9 years old and the grave belonged to a Rose Meynell. The grave of Rose Meynell who haunted the house   Because we lived at the Hall the vicar expected to see us at church every week; however, weekends were our busy time so we didn’t go every week but managed to attend at Easter and Christmas. I have to say we were non too keen on going to church as we had to be on our best behaviour (something which didn’t sit easily with us as you’ve probably gu...

Growing up in a stately home #1

...fessional ghost hunters - but that’s another story which will be featured in a later blog!   Don’t miss next week’s instalment:   'Moving Day Arrives!'   Follow me around my childhood home in my 'Tour of the Hall' – click here to view and subscribe to my youtube channel. OUT NOW!!!  'My Dad Bought a Mansion' is out in book form on Amazon - all my memoirs packed with lots of photographs from the times.  Go check it out here and let me know what you think!        ...

Moving Day Arrives #2

...My parents took vacant possession of Hoar Cross Hall in 1970 and the whole process of moving house was done over the summer months. We lived about 20 miles away in an old vicarage with a large garden and lots of outbuildings. This house was about 200 years old and they say Bonnie Prince Charlie marched past it on his way to battle back in the day, for all you history buffs out there! Actually I love history and I think my interest was fuelled by living in these historic houses as a child. My dad used to be a racing driver in the 1950s and before that he did motorcycle racing, often at nearby Donnington Park. During the 1960s he ran his own team, Shardlow Motor R...

DIY Stately Home #4

...eing that ghost and I hated all those suits of armour looking at me so I would leave the lights on and let my mum switch them off later! However, if I heard any strange noises in the night at least I could blame the new tenants now and not think about the attic ‘tenants’. Around the back and side of the house was a dry ‘moat’ as we called it. Not full of water but there to allow light into the basement rooms. A stone balustrade surrounded it and we loved to walk along the top of it even though it was a long drop if we’d fallen off! These moats were full of soil and dead leaves which all needed to be cleared and the only way of accessing them was throu...

The Tax Man Cometh #29

...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...

Moving On - the end of an era #33

...seen the ghost of a man in the Entrance Hall (the same one I had seen many years before) so the house was obviously still haunted! The grounds had had a lot of time spent on them and they were back to how they looked in the Victorian days when the Meynell family first lived there. Whilst filming the rooms it really made me appreciate what a beautiful house this was to live in and how fortunate we were to have such an unusual childhood living there. Not long after we visited in 2005 my mum was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease and died at the age of 73 in 2008 – eight months later my dad died at the age of 92. I often think how strange that they should die...