WHITE LEES COTTAGE ON MELBOURNE TO CALKE ROAD
Tuesday 22 September 2009
VISIT TO CALKE ABBEY 20TH SEPT 2009
CALKE ABBEY
Went to have a look around Calke Abbey on Sunday, it was lovely and sunny and warm for September and we had a picnic there. It was good to go round the Abbey as its years since I last went - about the time the National Trust took it over - about 1985 I think.
The Abbey itself is interesting, it's quite dilapidated - paper hanging off the walls and dark and dreary in places - left as it was pretty much when the last of the Harper-Crewe's lived there.
I was particularly interested in the servants quarters as this gave me a flavour of what it must have been like to work there - quite hard work I imagine but I think folk would have looked after each other. There were old pots and pans in the kitchen and big lead sinks, no wonder they were mad !
We also walked down the tunnels that led to the brew house etc. My Aunt Edna remembers that her Granny who was a laundrymaid there used to go to work across the fields and through a tunnel (so the 'gentry' didn't have their view of the park spoiled)
My Greatgrandmother Edna Clarke (nee Spencer) was chief laundrymaid (see photo from Calke book earlier) Her sisters and children also later worked there. Her brother in law, a Mr Lyons was a lengthsman for the main Melbourne to Calke Road and their family lived at White Lees.
I asked quite a few volunteers for information about my Great Grandfather Henry Clarke - he was a groom there. I got a nice phone call back the next day from one of the staff. They couldn't tell me much more than I already knew but explained about the grooms usually living above the stables - which may account for him being referred to as a 'general labourer' on his death certificate - he must have given up being a groom by then, possibly because he was ill (died of TB aged 38) and also married by then with three daughters.
I was wondering if his father (no mention of him on his birth certificate) was perhaps Sir Vauncey Harper Crewe, who was around at the time !!! just a fantasy I think !!
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