Moreton Hall Oswestry, Return to Brogyntyn Hall, snow falls and a sunshiney drive to Cheltenham

Yesterday I spent the afternoon at Moreton Hall in Oswestry.  We were there last year and have a lovely connection to the school through a boarder exchange program at Abbotsleigh.  Earlier this year Harriet Lang spent second term in Sydney and Ian and I had a lovely day out with her in the city.  Her parents invited us for dinner on the weekend at their beautiful home in a barn conversion in a village called Knockin - another really pretty place. Moreton Hall is a gorgeous school set on a large acreage about 10 minutes drive from Oswestry and right by another village called Weston Rhyn.  The school is currently celebrating its centenary year with all the events that go with it including an art exhibition in a Bond Street gallery last weekend and the grand opening of their new science block, with six labs and light filled spaces which is still to come, as soon as the special guest visitor can be announced.  It all sounded very exciting.

I talked with the Year 3-6 students first then had the pleasure of seeing the Year 7 girls, may of whom remembered me from my visit last year in June.  The school feels rather like a big family and many of the girls board - over 300 in fact.  The Moreton Firsts (or Junior School) caters for boys and girls but there are only girls in the secondary school.

I had a lovely time with Kath Ford (Head of Moreton First) and her students, who laughed in all the right places and were very keen participants in the drama.  The Year 7 girls were terrific too and I talked about the stories and also about the process I go through to write.  They had lots of great questions.  Last night we had drinks with the Headmaster Jonathan Forster and his lovely wife Paula, his PA Ruth and Caroline and Sean Lang.  Jonathan and Paula are heaps of fun and have the most gorgeous little dog called Minnie, a wire haired miniature Dachshund.  She has a face a lot like a terrier and is very affectionate.  I mistakenly called her a cross breed - she's not (it was the short legs that got me and her rounded face).  Anyway, I think Minnie might make a lovely addition to one of my character's animal menageries in the future.

We didn't actually get to the book signing yesterday so it was lovely to be able to go back to Moreton today and see the girls and sign all of their books.  They had lots more questions too.

We drove in and out of Oswestry past Brogyntyn Hall (the house we visited last year which in my books is Caledonia Manor).  I still dream of buying the place and restoring it to its former grandeur - although I would need to win the Euro Millions lottery first. I heard this week that Robbie Williams had been keen to buy it but even with all his money he was put off by the mammoth renovation and the money pit of costs.  I've taken some photos of the stone walls along the roadway and the gate house.  There's one of the hall in the distance too.  The derelict stable block with the circular window belongs to the house across the road - another stunning mansion whose name I don't know.  The stable block sits right on the edge of the road and would make a gorgeous home.

This morning was grey and wet - then it started to snow.  Apparently it had snowed quite a bit overnight and the hills around Oswestry were blanketed in white.  It was so pretty - a quintessential English scene.  The snow stopped mid morning and the sun came out.  Ian and I finished up at Moreton Hall and drove back into Oswestry to see Carrie from Booka and give her some more orders.  We picked up some sandwiches at M&S Simply Foods (please, please, please come to Australia) and then headed off toward Cheltenham.  We avoided the freeways for much of the time and travelled through gorgeous villages.  There was one place that really caught my eye - Morville, which is home to Morville Hall.  Morville looks as if it must have been an Estate Village.  Rows of chocolate box cottages and a beautiful church in the centre.  We went through Much Wenlock and Stourbridge before hitting the freeway and arriving in Cheltenham. 

We're staying the next five nights in a beautiful Regency building which has been converted into serviced apartments.  Ours is very well laid out and just a short walk from the centre of town.  There are breakfast goodies including cereals, bread and spreads and croissants so it wouldn't matter if you arrived late, there would be supplies for the morning.  We've discovered this evening that the nicest part of Cheltenham is the area known as Montpellier.  There are great shops and restaurants.  We walked for miles and then found a cosy (and busy) Italian restaurant..  We've just walked back now and it's one degree outside with a clear moonlit sky.  Tomorrow is forecast to rain.  Looks like I will be editing.

Shropshire, Brogyntyn and Caledonia Manor revisited

For the past 16 days we have been holed up at a wonderful place just out of Oswestry called The Lion Quays.  It’s a fantastic hotel right on the Llangollen canal, with two restaurants and a function centre (there have been about 10 weddings since we arrived and one non-wedding – yes that really does happen), an amazing health spa including the most beautiful pool and gym facilities (completely underutilised by me) and lovely gardens resplendent with their own peacock called Eugene. 

It has been a great place to settle in and work on Alice-Miranda’s 7^th adventure, Alice-Miranda In Paris.  I’ve made good progress – hopefully by this afternoon it will be almost halfway there. 

There has been some self-discipline required on my part as although this is a quieter part of England, there are still many attractions close by and I could spend days just driving along country lanes and visiting villages.  So I’ve used a bit of a reward program – certain number of words attained in the morning, go somewhere in the afternoon.  We’ve visited Wrexham, Chester, Llangollen, Oswestry and Welshpool. 


We had a fleeting visit to Powis Castle and a much longer day out looking at the Pontcysylite Aqueduct, and Chirk Castle then a lovely long lunch at The Boat pub in a pretty village called Erbistock.  So while we haven’t done nearly as many things as perhaps I would have liked, I knew that this part of the trip would require a considerable amount of work, to be able to go back to Australia anywhere near ready for work, work (and still I’ll need to write every day from now until we go home and for the week we are home before I head back to the ‘real job’).  But I’m determined and 5 days in Paris next week should be great in terms of research and getting the facts right for the story.  Then it’s on to Hong Kong.

By far and away one of the highlights of being here has been stumbling on the house that inspired Caledonia Manor in the Alice-Miranda series - the derelict mansion, which up until a few weeks ago, I knew only to be somewhere in Shropshire.  Now we’ve not only toured the outside with a lovely bloke called Pete, we’ve had a grand tour of the inside too, from the bombproof cellars to the spectacular roof with Will, the young chap who looks after the estate.  Then yesterday afternoon we met Caroline, her husband Nigel and stepdaughter Jazzy, who live in the Victorian gardener’s cottage at the back of the stables.  On hearing from Will that there were some Australians sniffing about, Caroline emailed me and asked if we’d like to see the rest of the estate including the medieval castle mound, the Home Farm and Swiss Cottage as well as the walled garden and loads of other bits and pieces.  We were so thrilled to be able to head out there again – this place has cast a spell over us for sure.

Caroline is Australian, and within a minute or so of meeting we established that her sister had gone to Abbotsleigh  (where I work) and she knew one of my dear friends, Donna Moffatt, or Mrs Moffatt as Caroline still referred to her.  Caroline not only attended the school where Donna had taught, but her father had been the Headmaster too.  The world truly is a small place!  There were other people we knew in common too.

There are not many times that I wish I was obscenely rich.  Really, I'm not kidding.  I might write about a character whose family has it all and it’s nice to imagine that life, but really, I don’t want for much.  The days of thinking it was important to have a big house and designer lifestyle were thankfully left behind at the end of my 20s when I realized that happiness is not necessarily a natural consequence of being wealthy. In fact, often, quite the opposite.  However, since finding Brogyntyn (my Caledonia Manor) I have found myself wishing I had the sort of money that would be required to save this amazing place.  To love it and bring it back to its former glory.  There are so many derelict properties in the UK, once grand homes that have gone into spectacular decline, mostly due to the absence of wills I gather and the high percentage of death duties.  Brogyntyn is a victim of time and circumstance, a grand old lady crying out for love.  A lot like my character Hephzibah, who I imagine living there.

We just don’t build places like these today and to see gorgeous architecture literally falling down around you is rather sad and wasteful.  A development company currently owns Brogyntyn and they have had numerous plans for restoration.  We’ve heard differing stories from apartments, to a family home (that would have to be one big family) to an aged care facility and a hotel.  I can’t imagine the cost of bringing the house back to its former glory.  There is wet rot and dry rot and any other rot you can think of, leaks in places that are obvious and some untraceable, the plaster is falling off the walls and ceilings and the cellars are full of antique telephone equipment left over from the days when British Telecom used the house as a nerve centre during the war.  We were stunned to see plant rooms (with plant equipment still in situ), a whole room with what looks like an ancient computer, switchboards and typewriters and all manner of bits and pieces.  There are massive boilers and RSJs that have come out of the ceiling but are too big to take out of the house without chopping them up.  Apparently the legend is that when BT upped and left, they were meant to restore the house to its original state which would have been a vast expensive; however, the then owner, one of the Lords Harlech was a little stretched and took a (relatively) paltry cash sum instead.  Hence the house continued its decline and hasn’t been lived in for over 50 years.

Upstairs on the main floors, it was fantastic to see that the staircases are still original – and the main one is unbelievably impressive with its carved timberwork.  There are two libraries still with original shelving and the marble fireplaces are all still there too.  The secret library door is less impressive in terms of where it leads to in reality than in my imagination, but it’s gorgeous just the same.  Upstairs the bedrooms go on for miles.  The attics are fascinating with their myriad rooms where the servants who ran the house once lived.  Some of the attic rooms are huge and there was one that leads to the roof which you could just imagine being the most gorgeous playroom.

The views from the top are stunning.  The day was hazy and you could still see for miles.

My favourite room was off the second library and apparently was the reading room.  With a domed roof and light streaming in, it is breathtaking even in its current state of dereliction.

Our tour of the grounds yesterday afternoon gave us more insights into this amazing property.  The gardener’s cottage behind the stable and the walled garden is Victorian and in very good condition.  Along the back of the walled garden there were once many more cottages, where no doubt the huge team of gardeners resided.  What remains now are some crumbling walls and evidence of fireplaces and cellars.  There were greenhouses aplenty too, with only one remaining now and an ice room built in under the earth and still chilly.  We walked around to the walled garden which is sadly completely abandoned.  The walls have suffered years of trees taking root, pressing their limbs through the brickwork and one section had been taken down to enable a tractor access to keep the long grass down.

We walked up to a larger paddock and then over to an area that up until a few weeks ago had been heavily wooded.  However, the trees have all been cut back to reveal an ancient medieval castle mound, with some evidence of what might lay underneath.  There was a moat around the circular structure and now there is a tunnel running through the middle, apparently a Victorian addition, from the years when the top of the mound was used as a bowling green.  British heritage are going to excavate the site.  It’s thought to be over 1000 years old.

Across an idyllic man-made pond is the Swiss Cottage.  A beautiful place built in a traditional Swiss chalet style with quartz crystal walls and intricate timber work, created by weaving tree branches together.  It too has a secret door made to look like a library bookcase.  The cottage is much bigger than it first appears and is currently rented out, as are all the habitable cottages on the estate.  It is grade 1 listed, which is an even higher grading than the hall which is grade 2.

We walked along the roadway to Home Farm, a huge complex of buildings, most in severe disrepair but with one home that is still livable.  We heard that this is where the developers were planning to create a range of residences.  The setting, with rolling hills in front and behind is very pretty and I can imagine why people would want to live there.  I would happily live there!

Walking back across to the hall we wandered (stalked though long grass actually) through what would have once been the main gardens.  Huge trees and stunning rhododendrons are dotted all over the place. It is a child’s paradise with so many trees climb and to make cubbies in, hides and the like.  I felt like I was eight years old again – imagining how many dragons there would be to slay, how many princesses (and princes) to rescue, camp outs and tea parties.  It was simply gorgeous.

We walked back around the outside of the hall, marveling at its sheer proportions, its dominance in the landscape, yet the deliberate tree planting in the fields, which, apart from where the stone wall has fallen down , ensure that the building cannot be seen from the road, making our discovery all the more amazing.

We heard some fabulous stories too of days when Eric Clapton lived at the gardener’s cottage and visits from Mick Jagger (who apparently rode a motorbike into the lake near Swiss Cottage and for all intents and purposes it’s still there), and George Harrison sitting in the garden where he may have even penned Here Comes the Sun. 

The story of Brogyntyn is a tragic one, with many family members over hundreds of years meeting untimely ends, often in horrible circumstances.  But it is a place with a fascinating history and surely deserves a second chance.  Having the financial resources to shower on a restoration project on a house that should be loved and cherished and shared with the rest of the world would be quite something.  And if I can’t do it, where is Sarah Beeny when you need her!