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.

Pierrepont and the first Thoresby Hall.

 Above: The first Thoresby Hall from a print by J. Walker.

Robert de Pierrepont came to England with William the Conqueror during the Norman Conquest. In 1500 his descendants built the present Holme Pierrepont. In the first part of the 17th Century, Sir Robert Pierrepont (1585 - 1643), 1st Earl of Kingston upon Hull, bought Thoresby from William Lodge, an Alderman of London, for his second son William.

William Pierrepont (1607 - 1679), then spent £1000 a year acquiring land around Thoresby between 1633 and 1643. He was a Parliamentarian, referred to as "William the Wise" because his opinions were much valued by noblemen of the day. His moderate attitude and respect for the King, made him an obvious choice for mediator and negotiator between Charles 1st and the Roundhead movement, and this he did on more than one occasion. It is a known fact that Oliver Cromwell himself spent the night at Thoresby in 1651 on his way to the Battle of Worcester at Evesham.

Robert's first son Henry Pierrepont (William's elder brother) was the 2nd Earl of Kingston upon Hull. When Henry died without heir in 1680, his great nephew Robert became 3nd Earl of Kingston upon Hull. When Robert also died without heir his brother William became the 4th Earl of Kingston upon Hull.

William Pierrepont (1662 - 1690), 4th Earl of Kingston, obtained a further 1,270 acres of land for £7,100, combined them with what he already possessed in Perlethorpe and Thoresby, and formed Thoresby Park. Soon after this in 1683 he built the first Thoresby Hall (a.k.a. Thoresby House). A mansion already existed by the lake, built c.1590, with some documents describing it as Elizabethan in character. But as it was built before the 4th Earl established Thoresby Park / Thoresby Estate, it doesn't merit the title Thoresby House. It was this mansion which William Pierrepont 2nd Earl of Kingston replaced in 1683 when building the first Thoresby Hall. This was a rectangular red brick building with stone dressings, designed by William Tallman who would go on to design Chatsworth House. It had two storeys plus an attic, featured 13 bays along its front, and was clearly influenced in it design by the Italian Palaces. In 1738 The Kennels were built about half a mile eastward of the Hall.

 Above: Leonard Knyff's painting of the first Thoresby Hall c.1705. The Stone Bridge (a.k.a. the Green Bridge) is in its original position, leading the Duke's carriage towards Ollerton and Newark beyond. I  think at this stage Evelyn the 2nd Duke hasn't yet extended the lake which I think would occupy the area to the upper right of this picture where those non-landscaped trees are depicted. Note the formal lines of the canal which would lead to a Mill and the Kennels in Perlethorpe Village.

 

 

William the 4th Earl also died without heir, and so was succeeded by his brother Evelyn Pierrepont (1665 - 1726), the 5th Earl of Kingston upon Hull, later upgraded to 1st Duke of Kingston upon Hull in 1715. Evelyn's only son died of smallpox and so he was succeeded by his grandson, also called Evelyn, the 2nd Duke of Kingston. It is this 2nd Duke who can be seen in Tillemans painting of 1725 (above).

 On 4th March 1745, only 58 years after it was built, this first Thoresby Hall was badly damaged by fire, and much property lost. Evelyn the 2nd Duke of Kingston, who had already invested a lot of time extending the lake for his boats, decided on building a second hall on this same site. During the 22 years between the fire and the building of a second Hall, he still spent long periods of residence on Thoresby Estate, monitoring progress. Quite possibly parts of the Hall were still habitable, or he may have resided at The Kennels.

Above: The location of both the first and second Hall as depicted on Chapman's map of 1774. After the demise of the second Hall the 4th Earl Manvers had this part of the old foundations flooded via a tunnel north of the weir, and frozen over as a Curling Rink for his daughter. In 1937 it was converted to a hard tennis court. The triangular complex of buildings, centre right, is The Woodyard. The formal line of trees leaving the bottom of the picture would have taken the Duke's carriages to Buck Gates.