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On one of my visits I asked my old friend, Jessie, to tell me about the village, its people, the gentry and their lives, and her own. Right then. I will begin with the well-to-do and I think Hatfeild Hall,the large mansion we could see from the shop, was the grandest and they had a lot of servants. It was a huge place and in one of the rooms was a ceiling depicting the sad story of one of the Hatfeild children who drowned in the fishpond in the grounds, and of the family dog who fetched help. In later years, I used to get through a gap in the hedge and visit the pond, and the statue of the little girl nearby, but eventually it all became overgrown and the statue disappeared There was a lodge by the Hall gates where the coachman lived, but when motor transport arrived in Stanley, the owners of the Hall, the Beaumonts, were among the first to own a car, Lawyer Smith being the very first. From then the family were driven everywhere. Miss Florence Beaumont lived mostly in London and was one of Mrs Pankhurst's ladies and she once held a suffragette meeting at the Hall which was very well attended, ladies arriving in cars, on horseback and even on bicycles. In 1897, five years before Jessie was born, Hatfeild Hall, together with 88 acres of immediate park, was sold for £3,750. It had eleven bedrooms, three dressing rooms, large dining and drawing rooms, library and morning room. The rest of the estate was divided into thirty more lots. It has had many uses since then and is now an hotel complex. JESSIE’S STORYS (2.) STANLEY VILLAGE PART 1. The Gentry. TO HISTORY ARCHIVE
Reproduced by the kind permission of
Irene Burton
"Stanley Hall, nearer Wakefield," continued Jessie "was a small country house built in 1802 and is now a hostel for the nurses at Pinderfields Hospital, and nearby is lovely old Clarke Hall, now a folk museum where children can dress in by-gone costumes and re-enact the past.
In 1936,1 remember, Queen Mary visited the Hall whilst she was staying at Harewood House and found it 'very interesting.
Then there was The Grange where the Haworths lived and their daughter married the son of the Beaumonts. Fieldhead was a large house owned by the North family, and Miss North sometimes rode round the village on a little cob. She wore a brown riding habit and had her hair in a 'door-knocker' style with a brown ribbon bow, and always rode side-saddle, of course.
She was a small, dumpy person in build, but she always sat a horse beautifully. Her brother, Kenneth, went to Eton and when he was home from school he read the lesson in church on Sundays, wearing the striped trousers and pointed jacket of Eton.
At Moor House lived Mr Scarth who used to send boxes of oranges to the schools at Christmas for the pupils. His house had a huge orchard and in the surrounding fields, local people used to take clothes baskets and fill them with mushrooms. When he left, the
mansion was demolished and a council estate built on the site.
Hatfeild Hall Stanley
(The House and grounds are now owend by Normanton Golf Club.)
Clarke Hall Wakefield
(Opposite Pinderfields Hospital.)
Oh, we had our gentry and our grand houses alright!.
Jessie.