DERBYSHIRE: Stepping back into the past

Jun 7 2008 by Sarah Batley, Liverpool Daily Post

Sarah Batley stays in a holiday cottage in the grounds of a stately home

CALKE ABBEY in south Derbyshire was once a magnificent baroque mansion, set in its own parklands, furnished to the highest standards on money acquired through marriage and mineral wealth, and run by an army of staff.

But like so many stately homes it fell into disrepair post World War I as workers found more money - if not a better quality of life - in East Midlands factories.

Eventually, more than 20 years ago, it was handed over to the National Trust. Inside it was a treasure trove, with a vast array of bits and pieces - some priceless, others mere trinkets - the family had collected down the generations.

Wings of the house were shut up, other rooms simply filled with personal items and abandoned when the owners died. The massive kitchen, once the hub of the household, was left to rust away and the family retreated to the former butler’s pantry. Electricity didn’t reach the house until 1962, with candles and oil lamps the main source of light until then.

As a young reporter I remember being shown round in wonder at the piles of antiquities and heirlooms, as the trust unveiled its latest acquisition.

It included a superb 18th century state bed, still in its crates because no room was high enough to house it, with silk hangings as good as when they last saw daylight two centuries before.

The Trust also faced a dilemma: tidy everything up and show the items off in smart cases, wash down the walls and make the house spick and span; or maintain the air of long-lost largesse, the feel of a once-great family sliding into poverty.

Fortunately, the NT has gone the second route - apart from making the property weatherproof. That’s something the last owners failed to do. Cowboy builders fleeced the trusting family and left with water still running down the abandoned bedroom walls.

The trust has also unpacked that State Bed, preserving its fragile beauty in a glass box.

It makes the abbey, built on the site of a former priory in 1704 in a grand re-modelling for Sir John Harpur, feel as though it’s still the home of an impoverished family. The garden and grounds are also being brought back to their Victorian splendour.

The abbey is still reached through its original gateway from the mellow brick village of Ticknall, which boasts great pubs and a shop selling home-made cakes and honey.

It was built by the Harpur Crewe family, along with farms for workers. Among these was Southwood House Farm, once a dairy farm and now a cottage let out for holiday rents by the NT, sleeping up to 14 plus babies in its seven-bedroom, three-bathroom, two-living-room interior.

That makes it ideal for large family reunions and birthday bashes, with the visitors’ book filled with names from around the UK, plus relatives aged two to 80 who’ve travelled from across the globe. The visitors’ book is also worthwhile reading for hints on what to do locally, such as the Indian restaurant which collects you in a minibus.

I was staying at the farm for my own family reunion, though with visitors from a little closer at hand: North Wales to Lincolnshire, with a few dropping in for the day.

Downstairs there’s a large quarry-tiled kitchen, with pantry, store and cloakroom off, then a hallway to the large dining room.

There’s a large living room and open fire, along with an etching of a scary lady, who prompted late-night ghost tales - enough to persuade our teenagers they wanted to share a room.

My 16-year-old filmed a very spooky tour on his mobile which, with an appropriate Kasabian sound-track, was on the internet within a hour of returning home.

There’s a second living room, overlooking the south-facing garden through which runs a stream, bordered by primroses and violets.

The bedrooms are spread across all three floors, including a double (with bathroom and mini conservatory) and a twin room on the ground floor, ideal for those a little unsteady on their feet. Or those who snore...

There’s plenty to do in the region, such as the Trust’s nearby Sudbury Hall museum of childhood, Staunton Harold estate and Kedleston Hall, plus the National Forest Centre, and water sports on former gravel pits.

And biking, or just walking across the fields to the Abbey’s parkland. There we found a kite festival in full flight, plus a mere with a woodland walk.

So it took me more than two decades to return to this once-stately home, frozen in time like the insects in amber in its private museum. But it’s on my list to visit again.

* Sarah Batley stayed as a guest of National Trust holiday cottages. A three-night weekend at Southwood House starts from £826, a week from £1,536. More details at www.nationaltrustcottages.co.uk.

* Details of Calke Abbey opening times and prices at www.nationaltrust.org.uk

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