Bulletin 92 – Feb 2014

The Lodge and iron railings at the southern end of the Estate were built about two hundred years ago at the end of the Georgian era, with a nod to the Gothic style in the arched front door. The lodge-keeper’s job was to keep the entrance gates closed, and open them...

Bulletin 91 – January 2014

‘A man can’t farm with wood n’ water’, which is to say that crops won’t grow under the shade of trees, or with their roots in waterlogged ground.  This old adage was still current when I started planting trees at Staunton fifty years...

Bulletin 90 – December 2013

‘Money doesn’t grow on trees’, very true, and nor does their timber make the owner very rich; high labour costs and cheap imports from well wooded countries make sure of that.  Most owners love their woods, and manage them despite the poor return. ...

Bulletin 89 – November 2013

Carving up the Countryside: Public Footpaths and HS-2 Boris Johnson and George Osbourne have come back from China full of admiration for the way they get things done.  They wonder why we can’t do the same; well I can tell them – we’ve bogged...

Bulletin 88 – October 2013

‘Downton Abbey’ has become required Sunday night viewing again on the ‘tele’, this time set in the period after the first World War.  For all the depredations of the war, and looming death duties, the earl still seems to have an awful lot of...

Bulletin 87 – September 2013

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...