Christmas is coming, and plans are afoot!

 

Around Betley village, Christmas lights and decorated trees (bravo Betley Bonfire team!) are making a great impact cheering the man road on these short winter days. On the village green a herd of illuminated reindeer have magically appeared to light up the nights.

Betley green  illuminations 2020. A herd of magical reindeers.
Photo: shared from Robert Betts Facebook page.

Over at Betley Court, we’ve tasked Melvyn and Shane, the handymen with finding our Christmas lights. Given how little of the house we have left, you would not believe how easy we find it to lose things still! There’s a faint recollection of a watertight storage box being used last year, so fingers crossed, we can have the ‘big house’ looking more festive before too long!

Earlier this week, Nigel and his brothers met virtually on Zoom (a video conferencing app) with a representative from our insurers and our conservation architect. They gathered to review the tender submissions from the four building contractors shortlisted for the task of reroofing Betley Court.  Its daunting viewing the documents, with each contractor having their own particular forte. There are so many new terms to learn, regulations to conform to, that it is good to have a few experts on board to help the Browns make decisions.

Planning documents and background information

In the gardens, Dave the tree surgeon has felled the dead elm tree near to the bridge. The elm was very tall and slender, and quite a challenge to ‘drop’. It has opened out a nice little clearing by the stream. Dave laid the thickest part of the trunk across Tanhouse Brook. This will create a little wildlife highway across the stream.

Log 'wildlife highway' made from the felled elm. Photo: Shane Oakley

We had a log bridge further downstream for years, but it has slowly sunk below the water as the wood decayed. For many years, badgers used this to cross Tanhouse Brook as they left their set to go foraging at night. I haven’t seen Dave’s handywork in person yet, but Shane has taken some stunning photographs of how the area looks now. It will be interesting to see what the local wildlife will make of it.

The log bridge, just on the bend in Tanhouse Brook

Down by the dam, the pallet fence is taking shape. Shane and Melvyn repurposed the pallets the visitors' hub was delivered on. Photo:Shane Oakley

A few weeks ago, I mentioned the installation of our ‘test’ windows in part of the house. We were trialling two different paint styles and glazing options. It prompted me to look up a story Prof Brown recounted in his book, This Old House, where he tells the story of two mysteriously bricked up windows he discovered when restoring the house;

“George Fletcher Fletcher-Twemlow (1857-1935) …. left us a rather idiosyncratic legacy: two blocked up windows spoiling two good rooms in the house. I searched for an explanation in something like a ‘window tax’. Oral tradition put me right. As a good Anglican, George F. Fletcher-Twemlow could not abide seeing a new Methodist Chapel that was built across the main road at some distance from the house. Rather than avert his gaze, he blocked up the ‘offending’ windows. I sometimes think if some of the family had worn glasses, they would have worn them equipped with shutters. We restored the windows.”1

The ‘offending’ Methodist Chapel opened in 1907, and can still be seen today – although we don’t take exception to it in the way George Fletcher Fletcher-Twemlow did. Just as Betley Court was converted into apartments in order to ‘earn its keep’, the Chapel was been partially converted into 5 apartments in the 1990’s, with the old Sunday School rooms at the rear retained as a chapel.

The 'offending' chapel - I can't see what all the fuss was about!
Photo: mymethodisthistory.org.uk

This Old House contains many more tales like this one. Prof Brown loved researching the house, and oral histories such as this one, were just as much part of the story of the house as the information gleaned from official documents. We were very lucky in that when the Browns started restoring Betley Court, a former stable lad and wagoner, Tom Brassington, would walk around the gardens with his dog, Gilbert, and regale anyone he met with stories about his time working for the Squire and his wife. It brought the heyday of the country house to life, and Tom had witnessed well over eighty years of changes in Betley village, by the time I came to Betley Court in 1993. Although the book is out of print, we plan to make an electronic version available next year, perhaps even an updated reprint including some new chapters!

All best wishes

Ladybird Su

1.      1. G.N. Brown: This Old House. JH Brookes (Printers) Ltd, 1987. ISBN 09512684 (currently out of print, but sometimes copies do pop up on eBay and Amazon)