Holding Court at the Court

Betley Court foxgloves in full bloom

One thing I’ve noticed at Betley Court since the fire last August has been the adoption of the house by wildlife. The rabbits are much bolder on the lawn, some even making themselves a home under the nettles by the garden wall and in a round flowerbed. The humane traps have been deployed to catch and relocate them to the paddock and fields, away from our ornamental beds which they seem to regard as delightful and delicious salad bowls. Most sunny days, I spy butterflies basking on the brick walls of the south elevation. All sorts of bee species make regular visits to the flower beds to collect pollen. A number of wrens and blue tits raised little families in crevasses created when floor joists were burnt out.

A bee visits the flower borders looing for pollen

The noisiest residents are the flock of crows that inhabit the chimneys. Crows have always roosted on the disused chimney pots, their cawing and crowing filtering down into the rooms below in an ethereal way. Now that the house is largely roofless, they use our former rooms as their playground, outside the contractors working hours.  Judging by their numbers, they are very happy with their current living accommodation, and it amuses me to think of a murder of crows* holding court in Betley Court. Incidentally, two of their ‘murder’ got themselves into a bit of difficulty and it was lucky for them that Nigel and I visited on Saturday. We heard desperate flapping and bashing from one of the gutted flats. Having found their way in, a pair of young crows couldn’t find their way out.

Catching the crow

Drawn by a chink of light the birds were beating themselves senseless trying to get through the kitchen window. We purloined a workman’s ladder and once Nigel had forced the boarding off the window, he clambered up the ladder and caught them one at a time. He quickly released them back to join their noisy clan.

Nigel releases the crow

The clearance work continues apace in both the main house and the flats. The contractors started clearing the cellars, and don’t ask me how they did it, but they managed to get a digger into the cellar under the Nash room this week.

A digger down in the cellar

The cellar was filled to the top with debris from the roof and upper storeys of the house that fell during the fire. The digger has been painstakingly removing debris, one bucket-scoop at a time into the dumper truck. That debris is then transported to the forecourt. When the pile gets big enough, a lorry with a grab device pulls up onto the main road, loads up, and take the waste away. The cellar is gradually being revealed. It has not seen the light of day since the house was built and it’s fascinating to see the alterations made to the building over the years. Bricked up doorways and windows have come to light now their surface covering of plaster and lath has burnt off. We’ve even uncovered what looks like a brickwork range or oven in the cellar.

What looks like a range in the cellar. The fireplace is actually at ground level!

The contractors have installed more scaffolding inside the house. In the drawing room, that includes some of the surviving ceiling that the notable architect, John Nash designed.

Shoring up what remains of the Nash room

The Nash room, before the fire

There’s a protective scaffold tunnel in the corridor to protect people coming in and out from falling debris. It’s starting to feel like the rebuild is getting closer.

Now the clearing is well under way, our conservation architect, Mark is putting together a design for rebuilding the roof. I always thought the roof was one of Betley Court’s best features, with its distinctive hipped slate work over the bows of the building. I’ve spoken to several villagers who expressed the hope that the handsome roof can be replicated. It was such an iconic building in the village and I get the impression people miss it as much as the Brown family do. The reroofing is a task we need to get right. As luck would have it, our handyman had been up on the roof with a camera, some time before the fire, to record the condition of the tiles, specifically, if any had slipped.  Those photos have been incredibly useful to our architect, in trying to work out how it was all built. Of course, the roof was put on in stages, so some of the abutments are unconventional to say the least! It’s going to be a complicated rebuild with an equally complicated scheme of works. Mark’s hope to simplify the attic arrangement over the main house, sadly won’t be possible. And as if that isn’t enough to contend with, we have to go for planning permission to put the roof back on – even although our aim is to have it looking as it did on 22^nd August 2020. Something we could not have foreseen before this all happened. What a steep learning curve the last ten months have been!

One of the huge skips being filled with the remnants of the flats

Take care of yourselves in these strange COVID times.

All best wishes

Ladybird Su

* I was so intrigued by the collective term for crows - a murder – I had to look it up. Lexicographers have traced it back as far as the 15th century, when it was recorded as a murther of crowes.  It seems that Murther is a variant of Middle English murthre 'murder'. Although the th sound had evolved into a d sound circa 1300 C.E. A couple of theories point to its origins, but all refer to the supposed behaviour of crows. Crows, like other corvids are scavengers, and will often be observed picking over dead carcases for food. Another theory refers back to ancient folklore which told of groups of crows holding court over members of their flock that had committed offenses. If the ‘defendant’ crow is found guilty, the rest of the flock swoops down on it and kills it. Legends also allude to crows holding courts over people, and how the appearance of crows is an omen of death.