On our way to the first floor we climbed a very wide staircase and I looked at the beautiful carved and unusual balustrades. Entering the drawing room, the first thing I noticed was the magnificent view. I had seen the Cathedral from most directions but never from this one. We looked straight across at medieval Durham with the Cathedral standing immediately behind the castle.
I looked around the room, taking in the painted wooden panels and alcoves. On the ceiling was a plaster decoration of a bird in flight holding a basket. Down at the other end of the room was what looked like a marble fireplace with a mirror over the mantle. The room was so elegant. Whenever you are house-hunting your eyes are everywhere, imagining yourselves, your possessions, and your life taking place in those surrounds. It is sometimes said that you know almost immediately whether you want a house or not. Often just walking over the threshold says ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to you, then you spend the rest of the visit supporting your initial conclusion. I had looked at some beautiful houses which were not quite right for us. I already knew that this one was perfect. Both Maggie and I had such a good feeling about the place.
As Mrs Hawgood took us proudly around her home we failed to get our bearings. The house seemed to be a sprawling, beautiful, jumble of rooms. She took us into the minstrel's gallery to view the Hall rather than entering at ground level. I gazed down at the stone walls, the arched windows and the old beams. I was awestruck.
Mrs Hawgood led us along the screens passage into the gardens. The screens passage divided the open hall from the service end of the manor house. I could see that our guide was passionate about plants but my mind was still in the house, mentally exploring the house room by room. One room which stuck in my mind was the smallest one, now my art studio, with its huge Jacobean fireplace filling the room’s entire north wall. It seemed to sum up the quirky nature of the place. So full of character. I was smitten and metaphorically had already moved in. As we gave our farewells to our lovely hostess we returned to our car at the bottom of the front path. There in front of us lay the panoramic view of the city. We drove off in silence, both deep in thought, but I could see that Maggie had fallen for the place just as much as I had.
* * *
Once we had decided to buy the house we returned to have another look at the property. We drove up the private lane. On the left side was a rundown barn with no roof timbers in place. I discovered some time later that, had I driven up that lane in the sixties, the site would have been very different. We would have been in a real farmyard, the farmhouse, the granary mill, stone barn and the large mill pond on the left. In front of us would have been a large wooden barn and on the right side a dairy block where the cows would have been milked. Between the wooden barn and the stone barn would have been a range of stone and brick buildings, one of which housed a spinning jenny. A traditional rural setting and one which was rapidly disappearing from our English landscape. On our visit in 1995, only the farm house, granary and the ruined north barn remained. On the Crook Hall site everything was as you see it today, although the coach house had a storeroom and stable block which housed a couple of donkeys. As the new owners we were determined that we were going to look after this beautiful part of the North East’s heritage.
Our purchase had begun. There was lots to do; an offer to be made and hopefully accepted, a mortgage to secure, permissions to gain in order to run my consultancy business from the premises and, most importantly, a house to sell and solicitors and estate agents to deal with. It would take us over a year before we took possession.
* * *
The early owners of Crook Hall had chosen the site very well. It stands on solid limestone rock above the flood plain overlooking the meandering River Wear. The site was situated on a spring, the well is in the cellar. Whilst standing fifty metres above the river, it faces south west in the lea of a hill which protects it from those harsh north winds. A warm and cosy site with plenty of water. The latter was to prove so true in our first few months of our occupancy.
One of the things which makes Crook Hall so remarkable is the way it has developed over the centuries, with each successive addition to the house being partly built on top of the previous one. The result is that on the site are three eras of English domestic architecture, all merging into one fascinating house. Over the previous years some of the fields around have been transformed into gardens. It is very unusual for a small medieval hall still to be standing. Most have disappeared and their stones used in other constructions. To find one within a city is very rare indeed.
* * *
Our surveyor’s report of the building was horrifying. It was a long read. There were so many reasons for us not to buy the place. The surveyor wanted to cover his back with this report and so highlighted all of the many defects of the building. After initial dismay, we began to be more positive. There was no subsidence, no wet rot, nor dry rot. It was OK we told ourselves. We even justified the poor state of the roof which was struggling to keep out the elements (and we were told the house needed a damp proof course). After all, with parts of the Hall having had centuries of the best and worst weather which England can offer, there were bound to be a few issues.
We were advised to employ a structural engineer to have a good look at the roof. It would have to be a good look. The roof was enormous, as expansive as a terrace of houses. There were four elevations on the Georgian house, four elevations on the Jacobean house and two huge elevations on the Medieval Hall and all the other smaller roofs in between. I should not have bothered. He did have a look at the roof but only two thirds of it. I discovered in the first few weeks of ownership that he had not spotted some soft beams which came to my attention when I hit my head on them. His report never mentioned these beams. We had his fee refunded. He was lucky that we did not seek further compensation but we were attending to more pressing issues.
In the meantime I discovered that Georgian houses do not need damp proofing and the damp we had was almost totally due to a poor and unnecessary damp proof course put in some years earlier.
* * *
Twenty years on we live and work together in a house which many visitors describe as idyllic. What began as a lifestyle business is now much more than that. Every weekend the premises host one, two and sometimes three weddings. We receive fantastic feedback and it is a privilege to share our home with so many appreciative guests.
Today seems such a far cry from the first nightmare weeks of our occupancy. We had decided to leave the children with friends on the night we moved in. Ian, who was twelve and Amanda, who had just turned eleven were a bit uneasy about moving home, especially into a huge, supposedly haunted house. We gave ourselves twenty-four hours to unpack enough to make their new home seem less intimidating.
We arrived at the Hall unsuitably equipped with a white rabbit, a border collie, a Cherokee Jeep and a small push electric lawn mower. We also brought two plants from our old home for our new garden, a wild geranium and a vine. For indoors we had some old furniture from Maggie’s family including a painting of her great-great grandfather. As an amateur artist I brought along an array of finished and half-finished canvases, oil paints and brushes. We also brought a pot plant, an Aspidistra – a must for one of those old dark rooms we were moving into.
We had no idea what was in store for us. I was focusing on my consultancy business whilst Maggie was surveying the enormity of the buildings we were taking possession of. I saw her glancing at the kitchen, a tired looking seventies breakfast bar surrounded by orange cabinets and old matching tiles. She looked overwhelmed. She turned to me and suggested, “OK, perhaps you could start by mowing the lawn.”
I think it was to get me out of the house and give her some space. (As if she needed any more space.) Well, we had a lawn mower so I hurried out to make a start. I returned fairly quickly, the grass was still long as I explained; “The flex of the electric lawn mower will not reach the lawn.”
“Get an extension lead,” was the next instruction.
“That’s not going to work. Have you seen how far the lawns are from the nearest plug point in the Hall?”
We both realised we were now dealing with a new household on a completely different scale to that which we were used to. The large Victorian house we had come from was dwarfed by the size of our new abode. The largest room in our previous house was not much bigger than the smallest one in our new home. The kitchen was the size of our previous kitchen and dining room combined. We looked at the staircase which, although beautiful, was twice as broad as any stairs we had ever owned. We wandered around in total awe. There was a sudden shout from one of the removal men,
“Have you got a map of this place? An A-Z would do. It’s so big I am getting lost.”
I ignored him as we were interrupted by a crash from above. It came from the men who were struggling to carry our piano upstairs to the Georgian drawing room. I was hoping that would be its final resting place, as were the men. I rushed upstairs to be greeted by six exhausted faces. The men sat hunched over, catching their breath and muttering to each other. They were worn out but the piano was in place.
We finally sat down to relax after an exhausting day. It was about ten in the evening. As with all old houses we could hear disconcerting sounds as the house settled down for the night; central heating pipes clanked, water gurgled through pipes and floorboards creaked.
Suddenly we became aware of strange new sounds which we could not explain. They seemed to be coming from the medieval part of the house. Maggie was getting spooked. I reassured her, saying we were just getting used to our new surroundings and there was nothing to worry about. She was less certain and, as I listened, I too became less convinced. We both began to get more and more nervous. She started to say she felt the place was haunted and she began reminding me of the stories we had heard. Did I not remember that the previous owner had seen a ghost? We felt increasingly alarmed. We then started hearing other noises; dull bangs, scraping and sinister sounding mumbles. That did it. We were now very scared. We knew the house was supposed to be haunted and we feared that supernatural forces were at play.
After a quick slug of whisky for courage I went down the stairs towards the noises. It was a long, fearful journey. With each step, the sounds were getting louder and my heart was beating louder still. The noise was definitely coming from the direction of the Medieval Hall. I reached towards the door handle, nervously turned it and pushed the door open. The room was in darkness but as my eyes adjusted to the gloom I could see a man in dark clothes walking across the Hall, illuminated by the moonlight that filtered through the window. Behind him was another figure in the shadows. I was horrified. Not one ghost but two. I felt my stomach reach towards my throat as my blood drained in the opposite direction. And then – to my enormous relief – I recognised the two figures as the previous owners. The couple we had bought the house from had come through the large screens passage doors to retrieve the last of their furniture which was still stored in the Hall. They had mentioned they were coming back to collect it but we did not know it was going to be that night. I was delighted to recognise them and rushed off to put Maggie at ease.
The next morning we walked around the gardens. Our border collie, Ben, loved his new home. He was darting from bush to bush, investigating every hidden scent. The gardens were vast. We bought the property so I would have a larger office from which to run my management consultancy business. Our priority had been the building and we had only given the gardens a cursory glance. We were overwhelmed as we walked around them, both in terms of their natural beauty but also with the enormity of the tasks which would be required to keep on top of them.
We returned to the Hall, wandered around again, and discovered a huge leak in the roof above the minstrel’s gallery and another on the gable end of the Georgian house. We sat silently in the Jacobean room. The reality of what we had done hit us. Maggie broke the silence.
“I think we will have to move again, I don’t think I can stay here. It’s just too big. We won’t cope.”
I looked at her in disbelief. We had spent three years looking for a quirky property from which to run my business. We had spent eighteen months gaining permissions to run the consultancy from these premises. We had secured an architect and builder to convert the coach house into a two floor office suite for the ten people I employed. A temporary office had been set up in the room we were now sitting in. Our employees would be arriving the next day to resume work in a new environment and Maggie was letting me know she wanted to move. Oh, and I nearly forgot, we had a new, absolutely huge, mortgage.
If I thought that was bad, it soon got a whole lot worse. The December we moved in was the coldest for years. The temperature dropped to minus fifteen overnight. We tried to pump out more heat by turning up the two central heating boilers. It was just too much for them. They both broke down. I nearly did too. Our insurance had not been transferred from our previous address, it was Christmas Eve and we were freezing. We could not get a plumber out to deal with the central heating until after Christmas. My mum and dad had come to share our first Christmas in the new house. We all huddled around the coal fire in our coats telling stories as we tried to keep the Christmas spirit going for the children. Not an easy task.
The fireplace was splendid. It looked like white marble but was actually carved wood with two naked figurines on each side and a wreath of leaves stretched over the wide opening. Amanda, our young daughter, looked at the fireplace askance and let her mum know she did not want her Christmas stocking hanging from either of those naked ladies’ nipples. Obligingly, Maggie tried to hook the stockings from two of the carved leaves. To her horror the whole edifice crumbled under the weight and fell in chunks onto the hearth. Six people huddled around a roaring fire in a now broken fireplace. It must have looked like a scene from some Dickensian novel.
Then it got worse still. The heating was not working, the temperature was plummeting and there was a copper tank without lagging above our bedroom. The tank froze and burst, sending a waterfall down through two storeys of the house and into our temporary office. No sooner was I dealing with that than there was a yell to let me know that there was water gushing out of the coach house and into the courtyard. My feet were now soaking wet and freezing cold. I frantically paddled around looking for the stopcock. I managed to find it and turned the coach house water off. At the same time, Maggie waded through the water to rescue our pet rabbit, Flopsy. We had put him in the coach house because we thought it would be nice and dry. How wrong we had been.
The flood in the coach house receded but there was still the deluge pouring through the ceiling in the Jacobean room and I had no idea of how that water could be switched off. Eventually I managed to locate a second stopcock and the gushing water abated. Maggie and I surveyed the sodden room in dismay. There was nothing for it but to set to with buckets and mops.
Now we were facing our first Christmas in our new home without heating or water. Maggie was totally despondent. I tried to put a positive spin on things by pointing out that we had plenty of coal and the electricity was still on. Christmas dinner was a challenge! Possibly one of the lowest points of our time at the Hall.
* * *
After Christmas things did get better. I had never seen such happy faces as there were when the plumber turned up with new boilers and all the gear he needed to mend the pipes. The New Year rang in the changes. Two new boilers, slightly higher temperatures both inside and outside, repaired pipes and rising morale in the Bell family. Although I honestly believe it took until the end of January to get the building warm again.
The better weather in January gave us the chance to take a look around the site in greater detail. What a property. What seemed like acres of gardens to maintain, a building which appeared to be falling down around us and a ghost to boot. With these early difficulties we realised that w
e would both have to work hard to keep our spirits up and feel positive about the purchase we had made. Throughout the years we have owned the place we have sometimes pinched ourselves not believing we could possibly own such a beautiful home and on other days kicked ourselves for being so stupid as to buy it in the first place. We are pleased we pinch ourselves more often than we kick ourselves.
We were now ready for Len, our decorator, to work his magic. While I did most of the designs, he was a dab hand at turning those designs into reality. We built the new kitchen around the newly delivered Aga. The cost of the new Aga went with the whole kitchen budget so Len made shelving out of odd pieces of wood and various cupboards out of old wardrobes. Maggie had greeted the arrival of the Aga like an old friend. She spent her time hugging it. I think she was reminding herself how cold she had been throughout December. I swear that Aga was loved more than I was. I was less enthusiastic. In my opinion it was a very expensive heater and scone maker. The kitchen is still standing today, twenty years and hundreds of thousands of scones later. It is a testament to Len’s excellent craftsmanship. He also repaired the wooden fire surround that had come away in Maggie’s hand when she was hanging the children’s Christmas stockings while trying to avoid those nipples.
Len continued his sterling work, decorating the house from top to bottom. In the bedrooms he discovered that all the front windows had shutters which had been painted into their boxes, and we were determined to re-open them. They were in perfect condition.
Blood, Sweat and Scones Page 2