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Art has always been an interest of mine and moving to Crook Hall gave me a chance to have a space I could call an art room. Studio seemed rather too grand a term to describe the place. I set it up in the top room of the Georgian house. It had a real ‘garret’ feel about it. Amanda helped to decorate the walls with two huge murals; one of Van Gogh’s bedroom at Arles and a more contemporary painting of my rugby playing brother. This dedicated space meant that I was spoilt, insofar as I could leave the oil paints out and half finish lots of paintings. Completing paintings had always been a difficulty. Now I could indulge myself. What’s more, there was the potential to hang finished works around the whole building – there was so much wall space. Maybe I could even sell some.
What I did not anticipate was that each painting I wished to hang had to pass the hanging committee. This was composed of Ian, Amanda and Maggie. Few paintings made the cut but many found their way into the large storage attic never to be seen again. I did, much to my delight, make some sales and at one stage I was selling between twelve and fifteen paintings a year. When Maggie was marooned in America, which I will explain later, I painted fifteen copies of impressionist paintings in two weeks. I then held an exhibition of these fakes and ended up selling four ‘Van Goghs’ and two ‘Monets’. I also sold three copies of Munch’s ‘The Scream’. Munch had painted four of these and one had recently sold for ninety-four million dollars so I was selling my four for ninety-four pounds each. I was left kicking myself when I sold one of them to a woman who then asked me whether I thought she should hang it in her Mayfair townhouse or her villa in Abu Dhabi. I just knew I should have added some noughts onto that ninety-four.
We wondered if we could extend my venture into running art exhibitions on a more professional scale. This would add interest to the house. We had organised some small scale exhibitions which had been well received but we felt we could be more ambitious.
We spent a few weekends visiting art galleries in the North East to try to find a gallery which fitted with Crook Hall. In Hexham we discovered a small professional gallery run by Ben Haslam. We loved his paintings. We asked Ben if he would be willing to host exhibitions at our venue. He did an excellent job for us over a three-year period during which time we sold a record number of paintings to our visitors, many being sent abroad.
Over previous years we had organised ‘Art in The Garden Exhibitions’. These had been displays of sculptures which were placed around the property. The first one was featured in Country Life which was quite an affirmation. Art in the Garden brought in many visitors especially in August. In the first years we had some great sculptors. Among them was Graeme Hopper who gifted us the metal fish which we have standing in the fountain in the wooded glade. We were also delighted to welcome David Gross with his larger than life wooden carved masks which he later sold to Saatchi. David was a great support to us and used to come along for a number of summers and demonstrate his wood carving skills. Ray Lonsdale, who many may know because of his wonderful work in Seaham, was also a regular exhibitor.
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Maggie would sometimes get in a panic about new events. She so wanted each one to be perfect. The fact I was seldom fazed, saying “Do not stress”, “It will be all right” or “What’s the fuss?” always led her to getting even more worried. It was almost as if she felt she needed to worry for both of us. On one occasion she felt there were not enough exhibits for the planned event. She then hit on the idea of living statues. She managed to persuade two of our team to volunteer.
Daniel, the first one Maggie spoke to, asked rather cautiously “Will I have to be naked?”
“No of course not,” Maggie answered quickly before this idea took hold.
That would certainly have been beyond the call of duty. Daniel was advised that he would be in naval uniform and sprayed to look like a statue, he just had to remain very still. This turned out to be harder than we imagined. He startled a quite a few visitors when he accidently twitched as they were admiring him. We all became used to occasional screams echoing around the garden where he was stationed.
A girl also volunteered. Rest assured she was not naked either but her arms, legs and face were made up to look like stone. Our girl statue was quite indignant when a visitor touched her arm. At first she did not move but when the visitor turned to her friend remarking that the arm felt like really soft leather a faint snarl appeared in the corner of the girl’s mouth. The visitors were terrified.
Our living statues did a great job and grabbed a piece on the local television news channel.
Some of our exhibitions were organised by a volunteer, Frances Thurlaway, and in 2007 she helped us win the Journal Culture Award for the Culture Event of the Year. We became a venue for the North East Potters Association as well as the Centre for Glass Sculptures. However, like many initiatives, they ran their course. We felt that the gardens were starting to take on a spectacle of their own and should be viewed clear of any distractions. That’s not to say we have turned our back on having sculpture in the gardens, we still have a few pieces.
I must mention the piece which one sculptor left for us. It is a very large frog sitting on a stone and has been carved out of one huge piece of wood. It looks like something out of a fairy story. Maggie added a note inviting people to touch it and make a wish. Visitors are slowly wearing it away with each stroke. Our hope is that all the wishes come true.
Another cultural experience occurred on a glorious weekend of weather one summer. We were taken over by a film crew who were creating a pop video. We were really excited. The song sounded great and the two singers had appeared in the Sunday Times as ‘the next big thing’. Such fantastic plaudits and the two would-be stars were very personable. The filming was a great success. However, the record and the video were never released. I can only assume that there must have been some falling out. I would have been interested to find out what had happened but our enquiries were met with a deathly silence.
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One day I received an unexpected phone call from Ruth Ellis, the owner of Kepier House, the other grade one listed building in Durham City. She was upset as she had met some engineers in the field in front of her house who were surveying the land for a road that was planned. It was the first she had heard of this and wondered if I knew anything. I did not so she went on to tell me that the engineers had spoken of a plan to put a bridge over the river and a three lane road through the valley. I said I would investigate and get back to her. I found out that such plans did indeed exist and the road was to run around the back of Crook Hall, just behind the pond and then join the A690 next to the mainline railway bridge opposite Highgate. I was informed by the council at County Hall that all relevant people had been consulted including all ‘hard to reach’ groups. I pointed out that some of ‘the easy to reach’ people had not been consulted including the landowners and the residents of Sidegate, a street less than a mile from County Hall and adjacent to where they were going to build the road.
After this short, and somewhat terse, conversation I visited all my neighbours asking whether or not they had heard of this so called Northern Relief Road. They had not heard a word and were furious about the plans. Thus the campaign to ‘Save our Valley’ was born. We campaigned for almost a year with a lead group of campaigners made up of Peter Smith, Angela Teirney, Tim Clarke and myself, supported by an individual who did a great job of developing a website. We were helped by a group of local residents and the wider public, including many thousands of visitors to the Hall. Objections to the council plans came from far and wide. Letters were written to the local councillors, MPs and Euro MPs. We received funding for the campaign from a number of sources including Lush Cosmetics. The local press, including the Advertiser Group, were also a great support. We felt passionate about our cause. We had worked so hard at Crook Hall to create something special, a quiet peaceful oasis. Now there were plans to run a
road through the fields which backed onto the tranquil gardens. It would change the atmosphere forever. We were frantic. We felt that if the plans went ahead we would have failed in our duty to protect the Hall during our ownership.
Eventually the plans for the road were shelved. I would like to think this change of heart was in part due to our campaign and the efforts of all those involved. Other helpful factors were that the Olympics had sucked a lot of funds from public works and there were black clouds forming over the general economy. The danger had disappeared for the moment.
The threat to the setting of the Hall and Gardens was to raise its head again a few years later. The County Council Strategic Plan included pulling the surrounding land out of the green belt and allowing the building of what was described as low density housing. Local opposition was again marshalled to save the green belt from disappearing. This seemed to have been successful when the government inspector threw out the plan. However, the decision was subsequently reversed on appeal and the dangers to the site, whilst abated, have not entirely disappeared. We continue to argue that the importance of the setting of Crook Hall and its associated buildings – the farmhouse, granary and north barn – cannot be exaggerated.
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When we first arrived at our new home all the fields around it were farmed by a tenant farmer. The scene took me back to my early childhood in Hereford. The farmer would have his large harvester cutting the grass. His helpers would all be there with the baler and I would be there with my wine watching all the activity. During other periods of the year there would be sheep, cows or horses grazing. He looked after the place very well, and when the tenancy was terminated the land was no longer farmed. It is now returning to scrubland.
We tried to buy the fields when the owner put them up for sale. Although we offered in excess of the asking price our offer was rejected and the land taken off the market. I was initially disappointed but very quickly this turned to relief when a huge hole appeared in the field. I went over to peer down into it. The hole was circular and must have been over five metres in breadth and about eight metres deep. It appeared to be an old mine working which had collapsed. It looked like a ventilation shaft. I reported the situation to the land owner and British Coal. Contractors came and filled the hole with concrete. Thank goodness there were no houses on the land otherwise there may well have been some fatalities or serious injuries. It was reassuring to know the Hall had been built on solid ground, a rocky sandstone outcrop.
At times we have felt the responsibility of owning a grade one listed building and the amount of work and investment needed to run a successful tourist attraction is just too much.
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During a particularly bad month in 2007 we considered selling up and marching off into the sunset. We were exhausted, stressed and constantly worrying about the state of our bank balance. Perhaps it was time to cut our losses and call it a day. On the other hand we had already put so much of our lives into building the business, our visitor numbers were slowly increasing, it would be foolish to throw it all away.
We were at a cross roads. It was time to make some serious decisions.
I decided to book a surprise holiday to Paris. Our overdraft was already huge. A few more pounds would not make a difference. Maggie had always wanted to visit the city and it would give us an opportunity to think about the future without the daily demands of the Hall.
I expected Maggie to be delighted. She was not.
“Keith, I could not possibly go on a city break which involves lots of walking. I am exhausted.”
“But I thought you would love a trip to Paris. You have always wanted to go.”
“Not now. I just need a rest. Trailing round the streets of Paris is the last thing I need. The only holiday I want now is one that involves a lot of sitting.”
“Ok I will book a different holiday.”
I realised the romantic week in Paris was off.
Within a day I had booked a great alternative. A week in a luxury hotel, a converted monastery in Majorca. What a great holiday we had. Just what Maggie had ordered. The accommodation was amazing. A great blend of old and new. The new parts of the building enhanced the old and vice versa. In the bar a huge old olive press was surrounded by modern furnishings.
On the first day we sat and despondently thought of our English home and how different it was; leaking roof, broken windows, flaking paint. Plenty of the old but very little of the new.
We both accepted that we could not continue working ourselves into the ground. The particularly busy times, such as bank holidays, were manic. Our social lives were nonexistent. Friends were complaining that we never saw them. We had to review the sacrifices we were making. We had to make some changes. In the meantime we gave ourselves a pep talk – no more negatives.
We went back to Durham with renewed enthusiasm and determination. We would inject new life into the Hall. We needed to bring the house up to date without losing any of its charm or history. We did not know then but when all the work was completed we would return to the monastery in Majorca to celebrate our achievements. Until then there was a lot to get on with.
We started to implement the plan we had made in Majorca. We were going to extricate ourselves from all our outside work commitments and focus on making Crook Hall and Gardens a commercially successful business and not just a poorly paid side-line or hobby that filled up our life.
Apart from Halloween and Christmas, we were closed from the end of September to the week before Easter. This had suited us for a few years but staffing was becoming an issue. Moreover, the marketing we did one season seemed to have to be started all over again after we had been closed for six months. We decided to employ a few key people throughout the year. Their role would be to help in a variety of capacities such as managerial, marketing, administrating, catering, wedding planning and front of house. During the winter months when we were closed to the public, they would be painting, decorating, gardening and taking their well-earned holidays.
This meant that we were no longer totally reliant on a transient student population to staff our tea shop. We were going to build a business which would be able to outlast us. We did not want Crook Hall to become a corporate country house hotel but to continue as a family home which welcomes visitors. This is very possible, especially with a management team who can run it, with us very much in the background. The plan was hatched. Extricating ourselves from our other business had its problems but the job of finding the right people to run Crook Hall proved even more problematic.
We realised that the time had come to invest a considerable amount of money in the Hall and Gardens. We knew the building could be improved, especially for the weddings. One of the first things we tackled was the Medieval Hall; to make the roof watertight and provide a heat source. We decided to restore the attic rooms and chimney in the Medieval wing of the Hall and reroof the whole Medieval and Jacobean house. We had to make the whole building more welcoming. This investment decision was the reinvigoration we needed and we attacked the new approach with gusto. I scaled back my consultancy business whilst working with our chosen architect on the restoration plans and the work was to take place through 2009/2010. Maggie had already resigned from her part-time post at the university and closed her counselling practice. She continued with her work in child psychiatry which she loved. We felt it was important to have some regular income during these uncertain financial years.
As with all our projects, once we had decided on a course of action we were impatient to get started. I was reminded of the apocryphal story of the Chinese Emperor who, when describing an avenue of gnarled yew he wanted planted, was told by his gardener that it would take a thousand years to grow. The Emperor responded by saying, “Then we have not a minute to lose.”
While I have no aspirations to be a Chinese Emperor, Maggie and I both shared his wish to just get on with things but
we found that these kinds of initiatives cannot be rushed. First, we had to raise the money. More debt. Then it was essential to find a good architect. In the end we retained the services of the Cathedral architect. He was obviously talented but I worried that he might not be able to operate within our tight timescale. We were aiming for months if not weeks. My concerns were unfounded. He was a really sound project manager as well as a great architect. He helped us to plan the reroofing and insulation of the Hall as well as reinstating the chimney stack. We also realised that this work presented the opportunity to put in a new stairwell and restore the room up in the attic in the Jacobean part of the house. The alterations to the roof space helped to reveal the amount of recycling which was being carried out in seventeenth century England. The roof trusses and joists were salvaged wood from ships. You could see from the tenon joints and the shape of the beams that they had served nautical purposes in the past.
Blood, Sweat and Scones Page 8