Staunton Notebook – September 2018

The FERRERS CENTRE -Time for a Revamp Forty four years, – that’s how long it is since we started to convert the derelict stables at Staunton Harold into workshops and studios.   There has been the odd blip along the way, but overall usage has increased steadily...

Staunton Notebook – August 2018

Shortly after we moved in to Staunton Hall in 2003 we were appoached by Nottingham University for permission to bring a coach load of their architecture students for a ‘field day’ in the grounds.    They had been doing this when the hall was a hospice.   Naturally I...

Staunton Notebook – July 2018

‘’May you live in interesting times’ is the Chinese benefaction, and ’Boy’ – we certainly do.   Football in Moscow, Tennis at Wimbledon, Lads rescued from a cave in Thailand, Novichok in Salisbury, Donald Trump in Europe.  Oh! – and then there’s Brexit. I...

Staunton Notebook – July 2018

Last Sunday was a day of two halves.  By eight o’clock in the morning the lawns were heaving with people, hundreds of them, throwing themselves into the lake, scrambling out and tearing off the wetsuits, peddling furiously off to Ticknall and Melbourne, and finally...

Staunton Notebook – May 2018

Rachel, who manages our sawmill, found a hedgehog curled up under some logs last week.   Rowan, our secretary, remembers seeing one cross the road last year.   Andrew remembers his dog disturbing one at the farm.   So there are some still about, but most of our gang...

Staunton Notebook – April 2018

Sitting in a Cornish cafe last month looking out to sea, a man came into view picking up litter.  With deft movements of his litter stick he conveyed each piece of litter into a bag held open in front of him.  He was not unencumbered, a big pack on his back, and large...