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Summer 2007 G Issue No.14 HOLKHAM NEWSLETTER About half of the Estate staff and the Coke family pose in front of the Hall for a photograph, which will be displayed at Holkham Country Fair. he biggest change that has occurred on the Estate in the first Holkham business to achieve the coveted “Investors In People” past six months, has undoubtedly been the Earl and accreditation. What struck me most when reading the Inspector’s TCountess of Leicester’s move to Model Farm and my report were the comments from some of our staff. Statements such young family’s move into the Hall. as: “we have a very clear performance review, the feedback makes me feel valued”, and: “we aim to improve the Park and make sure the customers After the Second World War, the farm tenant at Model Farm are happy”, emphasise how much they have benefited from the was given permission to turn half of the house —originally built process. I am very proud of them and look forward to seeing other as the New Inn in the 19th century — into a grain store. Fifteen Estate businesses following in their footsteps. years ago, my father started work on restoring it to two houses and then, last year, he merged the two back into one. There were This spring has also seen a tale of two Manor Farms. At Manor also some new additions, such as an orangery overlooking the Farm in Wells, a Hector’s Housing development of 13 new houses Park. My father and Lady Leicester moved in on Valentine’s Day is set to be completed by Christmas (eight of the 11 released for and are very happily ensconced. sale were bought off plan). The adjacent barns which had planning permission for seven units, were recently sold to a developer for We moved into Chapel Wing on 30 April and are developing our 50% more than their guide price. Meanwhile, the Holkham plans to decorate Family Wing at a more leisurely pace. Living in the Farming Company has assumed the tenancy at Manor Farm, house for a while before undertaking any work is, we believe, a wise Castle Acre, where the previous tenant achieved full organic status move. We are all, without exception, enjoying our new home. I three years ago. Our farming team has expanded to handle the would like to thank everyone who has helped both our families with extra work and Farm Manager, Michael Turner, who is facing a the move, making it far less stressful than we imagined it would be. steep learning curve on all matters organic, is embracing this new challenge with both hands. I am also most grateful to my father for moving out of the Hall “whilst” as he put it, “he still had the energy to enjoy a new I am pleased to announce that we have decided to extend our house”. He had lived here for 25 years. If I move out in the employee benefits to The Globe Inn from 10 August after the fullness of time, I will have lived here a similar length of time. Our Wells Carnival, when, as at The Victoria, on production of your son Ned, who is just four-years-old, will, I hope, get to live at staff ID cards, all employees will be entitled to a 10% discount off Holkham for longer than both his father and grandfather, and will meals, drinks and accommodation. For those of you who have not therefore grow to love the Hall and Estate even more than his yet tried our Wells pub, I do recommend that you do so now. predecessors, which can only be good for the Estate. Finally, I also urge you all to ensure you have an up-to-date I am very pleased to report that the team at Pinewoods — Estate ID card prior to the Holkham Country Fair. This year, you under the leadership of Richard Seabrooke — has achieved two will need to show your ID card to gain free entry to the Fair, of our Estate business objectives ahead of time. Pinewoods is the which has expanded to include a fine food village. Viscount Coke www.holkham.co.uk Archives FROM a historical perspective, it is always fascinating to see changes underway in the Hall: a salutary reminder that each generation has left its mark, although the marks are not always easy to trace. The boot room, for example, has now become the librarian’s new office, a change that would have particularly pleased Sarah Staniforth, the housekeeper at the time that the Hall was built, for this had been her room, and for many years the bedroom or store room of her successors. ABOVE: Copy of a letter (undated, probably 1920s to 1940s) said to have been ‘received by one of our school nurses from a mother In the Archives’ rooms, history is literally on the move, as whose boy was sent home because he smelt’. the Estate maps and a large quantity of unsorted 20th century records have had to be shifted, to make way for a staff flat. This married Charles Legard of Anlaby, Yorkshire, in 1651 and they has consumed much time and energy, but it is some had two daughters, Bridget and Ann. They seem to have lived consolation to know that we have come full circle: in 1760, in John Coke’s household in the old manor house at Holkham, these rooms provided temporary accommodation for two of but a document in the East Riding Record Office (found the craftsmen working on the Hall; by 1859 they were through a website) shows that by 1661 the errant father was in occupied by the roasting cook, a footman and three other the Marshalsea prison in London as a debtor. servants, who presumably did not mind the warmth and smells rising from the Servants’ Hall below; and in 1910, a bathroom May 1708 for the menservants was installed (and later removed) in the room where a bathroom is once again under construction. From the minutes of Thomas Coke’s guardians: ‘Agreed to allow Mr Page’s daughter so much money as will putt her out to a new As I have run out of alphabet for my snapshots from the mistress. Mrs Coke [Thomas Coke’s mother, who had recently died] Archives, the extracts for this Newsletter are monthly items put her out to her present mistress, Mrs Durrance a seamstress, & gave from January to June taken from various years during the past £20 with her & did designe to have given her by a codicil to her will three and a half centuries. As the younger Cokes prepare to £5 for cloaths per annum during her apprenticeship. Her present move into the Hall, all these snippets relate to children mistress is of ill reputation & has no trade and her master uses her ill connected with the Hall or the family. & the girle is the daughter of a nurse to Mr Coke & it was Mrs Coke’s intention to provide for her as well as Mr Coke’s, it being the June 1661 custom of the family to show kindness to their nurses, and the circumstances of the girle induce the Guardians to prosecute Mrs Coke’s Entry in John Coke’s accounts: ‘Taken out of the porch closet and kind intentions to her.’ given towards the maintenance and bringing up of my daughter Legard’s children, by reason of their father having soe unnaturally left April 1728 them, the sume of £20.’ John Coke’s daughter, Theophila, had The Estate steward’s accounts recorded 15 shillings paid ‘to William Metcalf’s son for 10 weeks work in weeding and keeping the birds from the seeds in the garden at 18d [one shilling and six pence] per week’. Metcalf senior, who lived in the village, organised teams of labourers working in the new Park and gardens in the 1720s, so was in a good position to obtain work for his son, whose age is not known. An adult labourer’s wage was usually one shilling a day. Three years later, the son had been promoted to £8 a year for leading the horse when ploughing in the gardens. January 1883 The housekeeper’s book, recording the items she issued from her stores each Saturday, shows that on 6th January 1883, the nursery was supplied with 3lbs tea, 10lbs sugar, 2lbs moist ABOVE: Part of a bill in 1605 for ‘the apparerell, dyett and tuition’ of John, Henry and Clement Coke, the three younger sons of Sir sugar, 1lb store candles and 1lb yellow soap. At this date, the Edward Coke. Their upbringing was entrusted to Robert Golde, first four children—aged from two to six—of the second Earl’s the elderly rector of the Coke estate at Thorrington, Suffolk, who second marriage, occupied the nursery, which was probably in was a distant relative. John was then 15 years old; seven years later he became the first Coke to live at Holkham. Chapel Wing. The frequency with which tea and sugar were — 2 — issued suggests that the nurse and two nursemaids fortified leaving their daughters in the care of a governess. Elizabeth themselves with plenty of sweet tea. wrote to her mother-in-law, Lady Coke, expressing concern: ‘A rather worrying question about Miss Bonar - you may know that February 1918 she is an R.C. [Roman Catholic] & unfortunately I did not find out until I left Scotland…I gave her an understanding that whatever Letter from Captain Sibary, Hall Controller, to the Manager of happened she was not to convey anything to do with R.C.