House History - Part One

Piecing Together the History of this Old House

One of the things I love about this house is all the history it holds in its bones. I’ve always loved old houses. When I was very young I had a friend who lived in an old house still with working servants’ bells. I remember being fascinated by the thought of all the people who had lived there before. Now I have my own house and can’t wait to uncover its secrets!

How old is the House?

I’m not entirely sure is the honest answer! One thing that is becoming clear as we start to renovate is that this house has had many iterations. Obviously, the majority of the building as it is today is Victorian in style. The gabled roofs and decorative woodwork are very typical of Victorian buildings around here. This suggests it was built in the mid to late 1800s. But, if you delve into the bones of the house there are parts that seem much older. The attic that we can’t really get into has some very old beams and the cellar underneath the main drawing room has some sandstone blockwork that again looks much older. Is it possible that there was a house here that was more of a Tudor construction and the Victorian house was built over the top of it? I do know that the church next door was built in the Norman Period. The village was also mentioned in the Domesday Book and so possibly there have been people living here since before 1086. That’s getting on for a thousand years of history for me to delve into!

The Raby Estate

So let’s start with what we know and work our way backwards. We purchased the house from the Raby Estate which owns a large amount of land and property in this area. The Raby Estate is owned by the 12th Baron Barnard of the Vane family who lives at Barnard Castle in Durham. He has a very large estate of some 50,000 acres in Durham and a much smaller estate of some 6,500 acres here in Shropshire. I’m still unclear how the Raby Estate came to have land here and in Durham but it goes back a long way. It’s something to do with the Duke of Cleveland back in 1833 but I need to do some more research. Anyway, my point is that neither Baron Barnard nor any of the Vane family as far as I can tell has ever lived here in Shropshire. They manage the estate from Durham and have always employed an estate manager to oversee things here. Which is where this house comes in. This was the estate manager’s house and has been for a very long time.

(We met Lord Barnard recently when he came to introduce himself just after we’d bought the house. He was charming and told us how he had often stayed here as a guest of the estate manager. He knows the house well and offered to help in finding out more about the house's history.)

The Eade Family

The most recent estate manager to live here was Tommy Eade. He lived here with his family from 1964 until his death in 2020. If you have a Telegraph subscription you can read his obituary here. I know quite a bit about the family from the amazing height chart that is drawn on the wall on the third floor. It starts in 1966 and goes right through to January 2022.

They had four children and at least 8 grandchildren. And I know that Luke was the tallest and Barney (who I’m presuming was a dog!) was the shortest. I love to think of them all filling this house with noise and laughter. It was one of the things we loved when we first looked around the house. It feels as though life has been lived here.

I’ve heard that one of the Eade daughters was a painter and I’m assuming she painted the bed head on the third floor and the sheep in the loo. Maybe also the fruit and vegetables over the Aga. They would have had all the more recent decoration done too. The wallpapering in the bathroom was done in 1982 and the avocado bathroom suite would have been done in the 60s or 70s possibly when they first moved in. I’m also guessing that they put the tennis court in as it seems quite recent. I wonder who among them played.

I do know from the obituary that Tommy Eade was a great grower of vegetables and used to take the surplus to the Wellington market. That explains the enormous vegetable garden, fruit cage and greenhouses. I can’t wait to get the garden productive again although I doubt I’ll be heading to the market anytime soon!

As the estate manager, he also ran the busy office which is in the annexe next door. More about this next time and I’ll have to give you a tour. It’s a lovely space that we hope to turn into a guest cottage. There were a number of old things left behind that add to its story like an old typewriter and various books and flyers from the 60s. I’ll be framing some of these and using them as decoration.

Tommy Eade took over the estate manager job from his father who moved here in 1943. I met a wonderful lady in the village the other day who knew the family back then. I think she said she was 84! I must have her round for tea so she can tell me about the earlier Eade generation. Perhaps she knows who put the pool in! I’ll slowly work my way back through time and see what I can find out.