CLOVERLEY HALL

Tour of Cloverley Hall.

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A brief history before we set out to the front door.

 

Cloverley Hall was built for John Pemberton Heywood as his country residence in the second half of the nineteenth century. He was a banker and his bank, the Heywood Bank, based in Norris Green in Liverpool was an old merchant bank started in the late 1700s by two Heywood brothers, his ancestors. This later became part of the Liverpool Bank, then Martin's Bank and later merged into Barclays Bank.

 

WILLIAM EDEN NESFIELD

 

He employed the services of William Eden Nesfield, a young man, still in his twenties, who had been working in Suffolk. He came up to Calverhall, bringing his master brickmaker, George Fox, with him. Nesfield was born in Bath to Major William Andrews Nesfield and his wife Emma Mills. Educated at Eton he would have been familiar with the curfew tower at Windsor Castle and he recreated it in in many of his buildings. At Cloverley we can see it in the dovecote building at the end of the kitchen corridor. Nesfield learnt to draw with James Kellaway Collins before being articled to William Burn in 1851, His father had worked with Burn on a number of projects. In 1853 he transferred his articles to William Salvin, a well-known architect of the time and his uncle. In 1857/58 he toured France and Italy getting as far as Athens and had a collection of Japanese artefacts which later played a part in his exotic flowery designs.

 

These can be seen on many of his buildings including Cloverley Hall. Nesfield was responsible in some measure for the Gothic revival in architecture, but at Cloverley he seemed to have returned to what could be called the English Style, with small red bricks, tall chimneys, and mullioned windows reminiscent of Elizabethan buildings. His use of decorated metalwork with flowery designs based on his Japanese collection are used extensively at Cloverley Hall.

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Another feature of Nesfield's style at Cloverley Hall is his dislike of symmetry which can be seen everywhere. I like to think that maybe he rebelled against his father's time in the military!

 

The building was completed in 1868 and covered a much larger footprint than the present building. As we go round the site we will see just how much bigger the original building was. Sadly, Mr Heywood had no children and when he died the estate passed to his nephew when the name Heywood was extended to become Heywood-Lonsdale.

 

During the First World War so many men died that it was very difficult to find staff to man these huge buildings and many fell into disrepair. Cloverley continued in use until the early twenties when the main house was demolished, the building materials auctioned off, and the remodelling of the present building was completed in 1926. The family made Shavington Hall their family home and let out the present building to various families culminating prior to and during the Second World War in the Nichol family, a printer from Manchester. Mr Nichol's sister was the head of the Lancasterian School in Manchester and evacuated the school to Cloverley Hall for the duration of the war. In the late 1940s the building and grounds were leased to Rev H. N. Duncan for his private Christian school.

 

The school, known as Cloverley School ran until the mid-sixties when, following an aggressive school inspection, a new Head was appointed in an attempt to turn the school round to meet the inspectors' requirements, but was subsequently closed and the property passed to Irish Evangelistic Treks who used it as both a training centre and a young people's Christian Conference Centre.

 

From those early days it has improved and continues to cater for Christian organisations and churches to this day. It has some forty-five bedrooms, some with en suite, two conference rooms, three lounges, three dining rooms and can provide full board facilities for groups up to 150, depending on the number of bedrooms needed. Facilities in the grounds include two hard tennis courts, and an all-year heated swimming pool, recently enclosed with changing rooms.

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OUTSIDE THE FRONT DOOR.

 

Standing outside the present front door we can see numerous features, such as the dates on the lead buckets at the top of the drain pipes either side of the door. Notice all the finials above the gable ends around the front, their tops are all different. The windows either side of the clock tower are different. The clock tower itself is not symmetrical with the staircase jutting out on the left of the tower. Notice the row of circular designs near the top of the staircase. These are Nesfield's trademarks. He has them on most if not all his buildings.

 

They are usually of flowers and probably owe their designs to Nesfield's collection of Japanese designs although similar discs can be found on the ruins of Moreton Corbet Hall fifteen miles away. This building was Elizabethan and the use of these “pies” might have been another of Nesfield's ways of returning to the English or Elizabethan style.

 

Notice the roof style, graded green Cumberland slate, quite steep but towards the bottom of the slope the angle flattens out a bit like a bell. This was to slow the rain down as it reached the gutter so that the rain did not overshoot the gutter. Nesfield had some good, innovative ideas to improve his buildings. One of them can be seen to the left of the front door at ground level.

 

When he had a room below ground he built a retaining wall to ground level some nine inches away which he capped off with sandstone slabs, thus providing a vertical damp proof air barrier between the ground outside and the main wall of the building. These horizontal slabs can be seen to the left of the front door, and round the back of the building by the orchard.

 

CLOCKS AND SUNDIALS

 

Many Victorian buildings were known as Calendar Buildings as they depicted, in various ways, the passage of time. Here at Cloverley we will see some of those time indicators, and on the clock tower we find the signs of the zodiac around the clock. But they are not all there, three of them are on the reveal of the clock tower stairs! Another indicator of Nesfield's dislike of symmetry! The Victorians had presided over two major changes in the way people viewed time.

 

The first was with the change from daylight time, when people worked during daylight hours and went home and to bed with the arrival of darkness and night, and factory hooter time when so much changed as industry took over from farming as the main employer.

 

The second was with the arrival of the railways. Up until then the fastest a man could travel was by horseback or horse drawn carriage. Time was local time, dictated by the sun and the earth's revolutions. Time was determined by the local sundial and village clock, usually the church clock, and individual villages and towns set their time pieces by the church or town clock. These usually had quarter hour chimes so that time could be set by sound and folk did not have to see the clock to set their own watches or clocks. Everyone was happy with that.

 

But the arrival of the railways caused a big problem. Trains ran to timetables based on London time. In fact, the platform clocks were set locally, not by the village or town clock, but by a signal sent up from London, thus causing confusion.

 

Whitchurch is roughly nine minutes after London in time, being further west, and if you wanted to catch the 9.00am train to London, you had to be there at least ten minutes early according to local time, otherwise you would miss your train. Imagine the chaos caused with local time! Not until the government legislated in 1880 were all areas of the UK brought into line with London time, or Greenwich mean time.

 

Here at Cloverley the local time was set by the beautifully designed sun dial on its white marble carved plinth down towards the swimming pool. A small wooden door at the right of the clock was where the time keeper would look towards the sun dial to set the clock. This would be set every week as the clock was wound up.

 

Reading the sundial was not a simple matter as the time shown on the sundial, which is quite accurate, varied with the year's passage and adjustments had to be made according to a time table issued with the clock and sundial. Two, or possible three people would be needed to set the clock time, one to read the sundial with its adjustment, one to hear his shout, and the third to literally move the hands of the clock, if necessary, using a special key on the clock itself.

 

The Clock and sundial were made by Joyce's of Whitchurch, who possible also made the weather vane. This is a beautiful structure standing some six feet tall with a copper flag carved out with JPH, John Pemberton Heywood's initials.

 

The counterweight is a four-inch diameter copper ball filled with lead. Originally the very top of the weather vane had a beautiful glass ball. The Clock tower had to be scaffolded so that the whole weather vane structure could be repaired following an earthquake in the eighties. The weather vane whipping backwards and forwards had caused the counterweight to split and half the lead weight had been hurled to the edge of the circular lawn. It was then that the glass ball was found to have been damaged by lead shot and was only held on by a small piece of glass. It was replaced by a copper ball cock float! A local blacksmith repaired the swan neck and the whole structure replaced.

 

The clock itself was made by Joyce's of Whitchurch and until that company was taken over by Smith's of Derby, was serviced by them regularly every year. It is a flat frame clock with two faces and a seven-and-a-half-day cycle before it needs winding again. The speed of the clock is regulated by the pendulum which will swing faster if the centre of gravity is raised, and slower if it is lowered. This is achieved by adding or removing lead washers from the pendulum! The word clockwork is best understood watching this magnificent piece of engineering ticking away the time.

 

As the hour indicator dial moves round, it trips the quarter hour chimes which imitate the Westminster clock's chimes, called unsurprisingly, Westminster chimes. As the minute indicator turns, it trips the quarter hour chimes. Those who know the sequence of the chimes can tell the quarter of an hour what quarter it is from the very first chime in the sequence. When the fourth quarter is struck the hour, chime is triggered. It is no surprise that there are three weights, the smallest of which drives the clock itself. The next size up drives the hour chimes, and the heaviest weight drives the quarter hour chimes.

 

The distance the weights drop controls the number of days between windings. Saturday used to be winding day, but the recent addition of a cupboard at the foot of the weight shaft means that it has to be would more frequently as the weights do not reach the bottom of the shaft. Maybe the day will come when the winding process is motorized.

 

There are five bells in the clock room, the four quarter hour bells, each struck in sequence by a large sledge hammer, but one bell has two hammers as the bell is struck twice too quickly for the one hammer to rise and fall. These hammers are raised by wires connecting them to the carillon in the clock frame itself, acting a bit like a musical box with a large drum and pegs set at the appropriate distance round the drum to play the chimes in the right order.

 

These four bells can be seen in the housing in the dormer on the roof of the tower. The fifth bell hangs from the centre of the roof structure. It is very large and is controlled and struck by a separate hammer and mechanism.

 

As we look at the clock tower and then across to the front door we can see a blue brick pattern in the first-floor brick work to the right of the tower. Here we have a non repeating pattern, another Nesfield embellishment! The original building was as high as the present clock tower, extended at the front to the edge of the circular lawn to accommodate an entrance hall, and then to the right of the front door along the line of the present wall round the terrace.

 

ON THE TERRACE

 

Passing through the doorway to the terrace we get a further impression of the size of the original building which covered the terrace area to the wall on the right. The Great Hall was forty-four feet long, twenty-six feet wide and 23 feet high, the height of the parapet wall between the gable ends to our left. A ten-foot-wide stair led up to the dining room, drawing room and library which lead out over the lawn towards the lake. Below the dining room and drawing room were the business room, morning room and billiards room with a toilet off.

 

These downstairs rooms were generally the men's domain. The library in this case was probably where Mr Heywood did his studying although in many Victorian homes they would indicate a man's wealth and academic learning. There were two floors above the great hall, the main bedroom floor and above that the upstairs staff rooms.

 

Some sandstone panels from a frieze around the top windows of the original building showing the four seasons, summer, autumn, winter, and spring are further indications of this as being a calendar house. More evidence of this is found in further panels on the wall to our left, and the first line of a famous poem carved in a panel over the door to the garden flat: “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.” This is from Robert Herrick, 1591 - 1674

 

To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time

 

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
   Old Time is still a-flying.
And this same flower that smiles today
   Tomorrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun, 
   The higher he is a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
   And nearer he is to set.

That age is best, which is the first,
   When youth and blood are warmer.
But being spent, the worse, and worst
   Times still succeed the former. 

Then be not coy, but use your time,
   And while ye may, go marry.
For having lost but once your prime,
   You may forever tarry.

THE LAWNS AND LAKE

 

Passing down the curved steps to the lawn and looking out to the manmade lake across the field we can see the Ha-ha.  This was a device used by landscape gardeners of the day to provide a rural vista with parkland and woods. Cattle might be grazed in the fields and this would allow them to graze right up to the more formal lawns without any danger of them getting into the grounds. This low wall avoided blocking the view. As we approach the drop to the lower lawn we cross a wide gravel path now grassed over which gave access to the original building.

 

This allowed the family to walk along the front of the house towards the formal steps down to the field at the far right of the Ha-ha. Running along both sides of this walk were surface water drains to keep the walk reasonably dry. Similar gravel paths existed in the woods and were protected from flooding by similar surface water drain and wrought iron drain covers.

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THE LAKE

 

The lake provided a source of pleasure with its island and causeway for picnics together with its ornate boathouse, allowing for fishing and shooting. It was also the source of ice for making sorbets, cooling wine, and preserving food.

 

The ice was cut in the winter and stored in two ice houses at either end of the lake. Rumour has it that there was an underground corridor from the ice house in the wooded area near the boat house up to the hall and surfacing in the cellar. Work some years ago to provide a damp proof course discovered what looked very much like the top step of a flight of stairs leading downwards. The existence of this underground passageway, whilst possible, has never been explored. The lake has not frozen over for many years now, suggesting that climate change is currently warming.

 

Later, when electricity was developed it was generated twice a week in the pump house at the left-hand end of the lake,  the ruins can still be seen. The electricity was then fed up to the battery house where it was stored in big lead acid batteries and then to the house for lighting the building. The battery house originally had a switching room at one end and a toilet block for the gardeners at the other. Today that building is still standing just over the wall from the main car park. For many years after mains electricity was supplied to the hall it was used as a boxing ring when the hall was a school, and then converted into a two bedroomed bungalow for the Centre manager in 1980.

 

A heavy-duty cable then took the DC current to the main building under the kitchen courtyard and up to the distribution board which still exists in what is now the tea point, part of the original kitchen.

 

THE SUN DIAL

 

If we turn right we come to the original sun dial, an elaborate bronze time piece showing the family moto, ALTE VOLO. I fly high. It has the hours marked on it and shows two sets of figures to mark both early morning and late afternoon, evening. Crucially it also has the latitude and longitude marked on the dial. The angle of the gnomon to the face of the dial is the angle cast by the horizon with the earth's axis. So, the latitude shows how far down from the North Pole we are and the longitude shows how far west we are of Greenwich mean time.

 

This is crucial on a good sundial so that the gnomon is at the correct angle to the dial. If it is wrong then the time shown by the shadow on the dial will be wrong as well. This particular sun dial is pretty accurate but must be read with the relevant adjustments for the time of year. As we know, the sun rises and sets at different points on the horizon as the year progresses. When siting the sundial, the gnomon must be set in line with North. This particular sundial was stolen some years ago and found by the police in a barn full of stolen garden furniture. The police used the latitude and longitude to place the sundial within a thirty-mile radius of the Hall and then advertised it in the local paper. We saw the advert and rang the police who brought it back but would not hand it to me until I could prove that I had neither given it away or sold it. Thankfully, I reported it stolen at the time and had a crime number to prove its theft. This is the sundial used to set the tower clock once a week.

 

THE STABLE YARD

 

Going back to the front lawn and then through the arch under the clock tower we come to the stable yard. On the way we can see the snake carved in the string course over the arch ending in its head on the right. Behind these huge oak gates, we can see the original brickwork and pointing, well protected from the weathering evident in the rest of the stable yard. The bricks used by Nesfield here at Cloverley were made on site to Nesfield's plans, the marl, or clay being dug out of the fields at the back of the hall. These were hand-made bricks and had impurities in them in the form of small stones, sand, and grit.

 

The best bricks were always used for the front of the building which meant that the poorer bricks were used at the back. These then are subject to weathering by small whirlwinds in the courtyard and water getting into the bricks then freezing and pushing off the face of the brick. The acid in the horses' urine did not help either.

 

As we go through the arch we see an ornate doorway and door to the right. This led into the saddler's room. Behind that was the tack room where the harnesses, saddles and other tack were kept and repaired. The saddler was an important man as he had to check tack for damage and wear so that it could be repaired and not cause accidents. On the left are two doors, the first to the tower stair case leading up to the footmen's rooms and the clock room itself.

 

The next door leads into the first stable and the weight shaft for the clock is immediately on the right as we go through that door. The big bell on the left-hand wall would have been rung to alert the footmen that a coach had arrived.

 

On into the yard itself where we find the coach house on the right. It had a shaped sandstone floor so that when coaches and carriages were backed in through the wide doors they were kept within their own bays. There are five double doors suspended on cast iron columns which in turn carry cast iron beams across the width of the coach house. This was another of Nesfield's innovations.

 

Up till then the longest flat span which allowed a floor immediately above, was eighteen feet, but these cast iron beams allowed for a twenty-four feet span. To the left of the coach house were the toilets for the footmen, stable boys and probably any other outside staff who needed them. To the right of the coach house and set back a little was the horses’ wash room with a big door to allow the horses in. A tap and floor drain meant the horses could be washed down indoors before being led across the yard into the stables. The three stables were elaborately decorated with very hard tiles probably made at Jackfield at the Iron Bridge. Many a masonry drill has been worn out drilling these tiles. The floors of the stables were beautifully made of hard yellow bricks set on edge in a herringbone pattern. Each stall could accommodate two horses and had its own drainage system to take the horses' urine. Along the outside wall above the stables were wooden louvres which can still be seen today to the left of the clock tower. These led into chambers above the stable ceilings and trap doors could be opened or shut to provide air conditioning for the horses below.

 

You could say the horses had air conditioning and en-suite facilities to make life much more comfortable for them and probably for those who looked after them! Above the stables was the hay loft, now six bedrooms, some with en-suites. A hoist at the top of the fire escape provided access to the hay loft for bails of straw. An inner shaft down to the first stable on the left allowed hay to be lowered.

 

At the end of the stable block stood the Brew House where beer was brewed for the workers. A boiler in the cellar was served by a slipway down so that coal could be easily taken right into the boiler house by a small cart. The boiler provided both hot water and heat to dry the hops and brew the beer. William Nesfield made extensive use of louvres for ventilation as hot air would rise and we see the use of louvres all around the working parts of the house.

 

The present windows in the brew house, called the Dod after the previous owners of Cloverley Hall the Dod family, replaced huge louvres. Again, it is worth noting the different wrought iron heads to the bars outside the ground level windows to the boiler room.

 

THE KITCHEN COURTYARD

 

Moving round to the next or kitchen courtyard we get a good view of the laundry with the drying room above and the ironing room adjacent to it on the first floor. Nesfield made good provision for water for washing clothes, flushing toilets and watering horses by collecting rain water from the roofs of the various buildings. At the bottom of each drainpipe there was a catchpit approximately two feet cubed covered by a sandstone slab. The water would collect in these catchpits, the silt and muck would sink to the bottom and the clear water would then flow through a pipe at the top of the pit down a separate drainage system into two large chambers under the original laundry floor from where it was pumped up by hand into at least two huge tanks in the roof. Indicators for these two roof tanks can be seen inside the back door to the building high up on the right. A float on the surface of the water would rise as the tank was filled, a counterweight in the form of a pointer connected by a cable would slide down the scale on the wall and indicate when the tank was full. At this point the pumping would stop, as the overflow from the tank led out of the roof and down the gutter back to the collecting chambers under the laundry! The second indicator is on the wall outside the present office.

 

Water from these two tanks was fed around the servants’ quarters to where it was needed. Very good drinking water was pumped up from the beautiful brick lined well, still used to provide water for the gardens, but it is not used in the main house. 

 

There was a row of sinks under the windows where the clothes would be washed, probably using a dolly peg. A chimney stack with some four flues shows how important heat and hot water were to this process. The water would have been heated in the boiler room between the stable toilets and the laundry-room.  There is evidence of a drying system using big iron pipes in a small area next to the laundry itself. A dumb waiter recessed into the laundry-room wall took clothes up to the airing room immediately above. Here they would have finished drying. Large trap doors in the ceiling of the room above let the hot air into the roof space from where it was vented through yet more louvres to the outside. Notice the very large windows in that upper room which allowed the sun to blaze in and air the clothes. They would then have been taken to the next room round to be ironed and probably stored until needed again. Although these rooms have been converted into bedrooms and washing facilities, there was no way through, as there is now, to the bedrooms above the coach house.

 

We are all aware of period dramas like “Upstairs, downstairs” and similar period dramas highlighting the difference between those servants who looked after the family, upstairs, and those who looked after the cooking, cleaning, and animals. As we look at the present house we may wonder why the main house was demolished and the servants’ quarters and stables retained. The answer is that the main house rooms were too large to be workable with a much-reduced staff. One photograph shown to me by the descendent of a former butler to the family showed twenty-five servants, gardeners and footman posing in a group under the clock tower. What was left has all the working rooms of the original.

 

There were apparently at least thirty fire places in the original building, and all needed cleaning out, laying and that needed coal, lots of it. There were several dumb waiters used in the building which made transporting coal around the building so much easier than carrying buckets of coal up and down the stairs. In this courtyard we see the back of the coach house and there was no way from the laundry room to the coach house.

 

THE SERVANTS ENTRANCE

 

Then we come to the servants' back door leading into the back of the house. The corridor here is unusual in that it slopes down from the lamp room to the back door, dropping some six inches. This allowed for the floor to be washed regularly to get rid of mud and then to dry quickly. As we make our way up this corridor we come to a set of stairs leading up to the servants’ rooms over the coach house, all with their own fireplace. The door under the stairs was added in the 1990s to provide downstairs bedrooms where the tack and saddler’s rooms were.  The next door on the right was added when the main house was demolished in the mid-twenties. It led into the boot room where all the boots and shoes were kept and cleaned. This in turn led through into the tack room and then on to the saddler’s room, again with his own fireplace. In the original plan there was no door there. Instead, the boot room was accessed from the next door into the brushing room. Next around on the right was the lamp room and on the left the servants' hall where all the servants would have got their instructions for the day and had their meals. It was also where all the bell pulls ended within their appropriate sprung bells and indicators.

 

THE KITCHEN AREA

 

Next on the left was the door into a very large kitchen with a huge hearth and smoking area up behind the chimney for smoking and curing meat etc. At some stage early on there was a gas cooker in the middle of the kitchen. The gas was coal gas made in a gas works about half a mile away by the Estate yard and brought to the Hall through a large four-inch cast iron pipe though the woods. This appears in the basement and some forty years ago the gas regulator was discovered. Sadly, it was removed as being in the way and subsequently lost. Before the introduction of electricity, the building was lit by gaslight and gas pipes are still sometimes found buried in the plaster walls. The gas lighting was supplemented by the lamps in the lamp room. Through the kitchen we come to the original scullery, now the kitchen, and to the right the pastry room. Circular steps in the corner led down to the fish slab and cold rooms in the cellar and up to the smoking platform at the back of the kitchen range. Turning left down the back corridor took you past a dry food store, pantry, and larder. This had, and still has a freezer in it. It is a large slate chest, accessed from the top in which ice from the ice houses was mixed with salt.

 

This caused the ice to melt and take the heat out of any food stuffs stored in the chest. Not exactly a deep freeze, but up with the technology of the day. At the end of the kitchen corridor three sets of stairs face you. Those to the right led up to the game larder. This clever piece of building work had a cavity wall which was ventilated by slits in the outer wall which provided for a cold room. It had a sandstone floor with a gully two or three inches away from the inside wall. This was to catch the drips from the carcases hanging round the walls. In the centre was a metal contraption on which carcases were also hung, probably to make for ease of butchering the carcases. The room was some twenty feet high and above that, but accessed from a different point, was the dovecot. Stairs straight ahead led to a toilet for the kitchen staff, but not before passing a heavy wooden ladder fastened vertically to the wall on the right.

 

This led up through two trap doors into the dove cot. For all the innovations in the building this seemed a crude and dangerous way to access the dove cot which might have provided eggs for consumption! Opposite this ladder was the door into the flour store which in turn had a hoist device for lowering bags of flour to the bakery below. Stairs down to the left led to a coal hole or possibly another cold room on the left and a door into the bakery on the right before leading out through the tradesman's door to the kitchen courtyard once again.

 

Exiting the tradesman's door and following the building round to the right brings you to the Gun room which originally had the beautifully made curved fronted gun cupboards now situated in what was originally the plate cleaning room near the present front door. The gun room also had a toilet and wash basin off it.

 

UNDER BUTLER'S DOMAIN

 

Going back to the main corridor and turning right we pass the still room on our left, now the office and shop, and a set of stairs rising on our right up to more servants rooms. Below these stairs are some stairs going down into the cellars which are quite extensive below the main house. Next on the left was the Housekeeper's room. Straight ahead we go through a pair of swing doors into what became the main part of the house after 1926 but was originally still the butler's domain. To the right was the plate cleaning room with the original opening to the plate strong room where all the silver plate was kept. Silver service meant service off silver salvers etc with silver cutlery and this was very precious and locked away in a strong room. Now the original gun cupboards grace this area, leading to the under-butler’s room with a marble fireplace. Next on our left is the door to the original housekeeper's store, but now to the oak lounge. The beautiful oak panelling was originally in the great hall and moved here when the hall was restructured. Next on the left was the butler's room, quite large, befitting his role and responsibilities.  Part of his room was taken up with yet another lift to raise coal from the cellar to the main rooms. To the right lies the area originally used as the butler's pantry, but now the main entrance hall.

 

The staircase was supposedly cut from one big oak tree on the estate. It is beautifully made and originally linked the dining room, drawing room and library floor with the main bedroom area above. Lizard like carvings on the top and bottom newel posts suggest who the joiner was who made this staircase.

 

Going out into the lobby we can see double doors with cut glass window panes, sadly one of them was damaged by a girl's engagement ring as she pushed the door open many years ago. A panel below the glass panes shows more of Nesfield's pies and several animals carved in relief. To the left another door opens onto a flight of stairs going down to the wine cellars below. No longer used for wine!

 

At the end of the corridor there is an ornate door leading out on to the terrace with the front lounge on our right. Originally that was the cloak room. One last thing to mention is that when we took over the hall in 1968 there was a cupboard in the present kitchen in what would have been a large fireplace. It had sliding doors and was used to store heavy pans as it had two cast iron grid type shelves well as a solid base. In the early nineties the kitchen was stripped out and the solid fuel Agas removed to allow for modernisation and the provision of an extra room above the kitchen. This cupboard was rather forcefully removed as it had been well placed and surrounded by timber framing.

 

When we got it out we discovered that it was the original mobile hot cupboard for taking food from the kitchen, down the corridor, past the butler's bedroom and round the corner to the lift shaft where it would have been taken upstairs to the servery by the dining room. The cupboard was on four wheels, two on a shaft in the middle and one each on shafts at the front and back of the trolley, allowing for ease of movement round corners. It was tin lined with space at the bottom for hot coals and then two cast iron racks forming shelves to carry the food. The trolley was some five feet long with cast iron handles at either end. Had we known what it was we would have removed it from its alcove with much more care.  Sadly, it was too damaged to repair.