In 2005, not long after we moved into the Hall, I wrote a booklet about Staunton Harold, focussing largely on the history of the house and hamlet. Being an indifferent salesman it has taken me eight years to dispose of the two thousand copies we had printed, but finally we’ve sold out.
So now I’m writing another, with fresh photographs and more emphasis on the recent history. The estate is unusual in that it declined and was sold up piecemeal in the first half of the twentieth century, and was stitched back together by my family over the second half. Purchase of the Hall in 2003 was the final piece of the jigsaw. Did we need a house this big? Sometimes over the summer, with more than a dozen children and grandchildren visiting, I think we did.
Since three generations of our family live at the Hall we are keen not to over-commercialize it. Son-in-law Tony uses the west wing as offices and conference rooms, but for the rest wedding receptions, twelve per year, are the only regular events we hold. The suite of grand State Rooms, and the setting, make this a splendid venue, already fully booked for 2014.
The workshops and studios at our Ferrers Centre include several elements relating to weddings, and this year have come together to hold a Wedding Fayre on Sunday 3rd November 2013 from 10.00am – 3.00pm. A one-stop shop for brides and grooms? Perhaps not quite, but certainly a pleasant environment in which to research the elements which make up that special day.