Thoresby Estate workers.

Above: Jack Williamson was born on Thoresby Estate in 1907, and spent his entire life there. Starting work first as a gardener at Whitemoor House, aged 13, he would be remembered most for his work in the Woodyard’s sawmill where he started work in 1921. I well remember the sound of the saws of a morning, and the distinctive black clothing he always wore, which is captured in this painting by Lady Manvers. The person in blue is Ted Williamson. Anyone researching Thoresby Estate should try and get a copy of Jack Williamson’s booklet “My Life on a Nottinghamshire Estate” (1980).

 Above: Another water colour sketch by Lady Manvers, dated 1962. It depicts the interior of the main joiner's workshop at the Woodyard. The subjects are Gran Gilliver (left), and Works Foreman William "Jock" Craig (right), the latter of whom had run back nervously into his home the Three Gables to get a clean shirt! (I’m sure Lady Manvers wouldn’t have minded, but he did).

Above: Seated on the steps leading from the Blue Dining Room into the gardens at Thoresby Hall, these seven workers were mostly based in the Woodyard on Thoresby Estate. Back row left to right: Ted Williamson (one of the operators in the saw mill), Les Dennison, Charlie Leepins, Bob Dickinson. Bottom row left to right: William (Bill) Craig (foreman / joiner at the Woodyard and also known as Jock), Bill Nunn (plumber), Alf Dennison.

Above: A team of workers no doubt sent down from the Woodyard to clear the snow in front of the gates at Perlethorpe Church. The only person I can recognise with any certainty is Jack Kenyon on the left, who lived in the Almshouses. I believe the picture was taken c.1960. (Credit goes to former Perlethorpe School pupil David Reddish for making this photo available).

Above: The central figure is William Craig Senior, the chief gardener at Thoresby Hall for a short time in the late 1950s / early 1960's, until he became homesick for Scotland to where he returned.


Any errors in these names / details can be corrected via leaving a comment.

Lady Rozelle Raynes 1925 – 2015.

 

Above: Lady Manvers' portrait drawing of her only daughter Lady Rozelle, looking rather proud in her Wren's uniform, 1944.

Lady Frederica Rozelle Ridgway Pierrepont would have been 15 years old when, in 1940, her father became the 6th Earl Manvers (succeeding his cousin) and took up residence in Thoresby Hall. She was the youngest of three children but the only one to survive to adulthood.

Soon after the family moved into the Hall it was requisitioned by the military. It was World War 2, and troops were billeted on the estate whilst training both here and at Rufford Abbey. As a small child she had been fascinated by the sea, and the Second World War presented an opportunity to join the WRNS as a tugboat stoker. (Much preferable in her eyes to a finishing school in Switzerland.) She would recall those times as being a “peak of happiness”, and burst into tears upon being demobbed when the war was over. But her sailing days had really only just begun, and subsequent adventures on her 25ft yacht the Martha McGilda, provided ample material to fill a series of self-penned books. In 1953 she married Major Alexander Beattie of the Coldstream Guards.

Whilst her mother continued to reside at Thoresby Hall, Lady Rozelle inherited the estate in 1955 when her father died. As was the case with many post-war stately homes in need of finances, Thoresby Hall was opened up to the public in 1957, and first husband Major Beattie was much involved in it becoming a popular attraction during a decade when visiting such places became a favourite national pastime.  However, the marriage ended in 1961.

In 1965 Lady Rozelle married Dr Richard Raynes. In the mid-1970s, with the support of husband Dr Raynes, she embarked on a scheme to help rehabilitate East End boys in care. This involved taking them out on the Thames in the Martha McGilda, half a day every fortnight, and teaching them to sail and navigate. These “Tuesday Boys” became the subject of a subsequent book, and in 1980 she established the Martha McGilda charitable trust so as this successful scheme of support for such boys might continue.

After Thoresby Hall was sold to the National Coal Board in 1984, the estate would be managed mostly by agents, but Lady Rozelle retained lifelong friends with many of the people living and working there, in particular, the Courtyard Gallery where her mother’s paintings enjoy a regular presence. In the 1980s she and her husband had a house built on the estate. She moved there in 2010 after suffering a fall, and less able to reside in London. Lady Rozelle died June 22nd 2015, a year after her husband. They left no descendants. According to internet sources "she is buried in the family plot at Thoresby".

Lady Manvers, artist.

 

Lady Manvers, born Marie-Louise Roosevelt Butterfield (1889 -1984), was a talented and prolific artist. Noting her obvious passion for the subject, her father Sir Frederick Butterfield of Cliffe Castle, Yorkshire, enrolled her in the Julienne School of Art when the family moved to Paris in her early teens. This School concentrated on studious drawing from observation, the benefits of which are apparent in the strong draftsmanship underpinning all her work.

When Lady Manvers moved to Thoresby Park as wife to Gervas Evelyn Pierrepont, 6th Earl Manvers, she would take for her subject many of the people on the Estate. Her drawings and paintings are of keen historical interest today. Her sketchbook studies of those "Upstairs Downstairs" years, and the military presence during wartime preparations, are an invaluable and unique record of Thoresby at that time. However, I cannot help but feel a degree of loneliness in her paintings, a series of canvases set-up undisturbed throughout those empty rooms.

When her husband died in 1955 it meant the end of the Manvers line. After Lady Manvers died in 1984 her daughter Lady Rozelle allowed a small number of such sketches and paintings to be given to the sitters involved, and I still have the two letters from her authorizing this particular work to be given over to me. In 1991 Lady Rozelle oversaw the conversion of the Stable Block to the right of Thoresby Hall into an Art Gallery / visitors’ shop, which could celebrate her mother's work as well as display paintings by new artists. Following the death of Lady Rozelle, much of the gallery space was converted into a café / restaurant.

Below: Lady Manvers Self Portrait 1952.

You can read a piece I was asked to write about Lady Manvers for Nottingham University, on THIS LINK.
You can see more of her paintings in the Pierrepont Collection on THIS LINK.

Above: The Blue Drawing Room, Thoresby Hall. More Thoresby Hall interiors on THIS LINK.