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Royal visitors at Hoar Cross Hall #10

...pping off Princess Mary for her visit – at least the servants didn't have to go into a cleaning frenzy for them! However, having one royal stay for a few days still disrupted things quite a bit it seems if they had to build a bathroom for her!  I do remember a bathroom at the end of the corridor near the east wing rooms and thinking that it was an odd place to put it - now I know why! Princess Mary with her mother Queen Mary   During the 1930s a lot of weekend parties were held at the Hall. One young man who became a close friend of the Meynell family made regular visits to Hoar Cross and recalled the happy times he spent there as “.....the last day...

Queen Alexandra - my family #50

...     Princess Mary (left) and Duchesse d'Aosta at Balmoral The Princess of Wales (later to become Queen Mary) is seen here standing with the Duchesse d'Aosta, also known as Princess Helene of Orleans. Princess Helene was a member of the deposed Orleans royal family of France who were forced to abdicate after the French Revolution of 1848 and spent some time living in the UK. When the Italo-Turkish War broke out in 1911 she trained as a nurse and cared for wounded soldiers aboard a hospital ship. During the First World War she became the head of the Italian Red Cross nurses and spent much of her time near the front line. She is known for greatly improving s...

Royal Visitors at Hoar Cross Hall #49

...this was Princess Mary's bathroom!  (see header picture of Queen Mary and her daughter). So maybe the family came for tea whilst dropping off Princess Mary for her visit – at least the servants didn't have to go into a cleaning frenzy for them! However, having one royal stay for a few days still disrupted things quite a bit it seems if they had to build a whole bathroom for her! During the 1930s a lot of weekend parties were held at the Hall. One young man who became a close friend of the Meynell family made regular visits to Hoar Cross and recalled the happy times he spent there as “.....the last days of the traditional English country house with weeken...

Meet the Neighbours - Shugborough Hall #80

...The next house in this series is a mere half hour from Hoar Cross Hall and we often visited it during the summer months and later, when my children were born, we’d take them for a visit too!  Seated on the edge of Cannock Chase this elegant house was once a manor house owned by the Bishops of Lichfield, until the dissolution of the monasteries around 1540.  Later it came into the hands of the Anson family, who were ancestors of the Earls of Lichfield, and stayed there for three centuries.  William Anson’s grandson, also called William, demolished the manor house in 1693 and built a three storey building in the Neo-Classical style which forms the central p...

Hoar Cross Hall - a bit of history #11

...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 branch...

The Life and Times of an Upper Class Family #41

...THE LIFE AND TIMES OF AN UPPER CLASS FAMILIY:         On 11th August 1863, Hugo Francis Meynell Ingram married the Hon. Emily Charlotte, daughter of Sir Charles Wood, Bart, afterwards 1st Viscount Halifax. The Woods were an old gentry family, for many centuries respectable York merchants. They were later to turn grand upon the discovery of coal beneath their ancestral estates. This was the great Barnsley field, with several hundred acres of Britain's deepest and finest coal. Sir Charles Wood was created 1st Viscount Halifax in 1866 and had a very distinguished political career. The family seats of Garrowby, Pocklington and Hickleton (where Emily was born) h...