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 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.