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Blakesley Hall

Sounds like a good trip Lyn. It says in the BMAG blurb that Frank Merry joined the Artists Rifles in WW1. I assume he was an artist and wonder if there was any of his work on display? And if he did any sketches of the Front? Viv.


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BLAKESLEY HALL..ST EGBU AND ST GILES CHURCH YARDLEY 4TH OCT 2014 006.JPGBLAKESLEY HALL..ST EGBU AND ST GILES CHURCH YARDLEY 4TH OCT 2014 009.JPGhi viv..to be honest im not even sure what the artists rifles reg actually entailed...couldnt see any sketches about unless i missed them..i did take pics of most of the info boards...these are the 2 regarding frank..seems he was very much into sports...
 
Hi Lyn. Originally it had artistic men like painters, writers, actors etc. Just wondered if that's what made him join them. As time went on I expect the men came from all interests. If he had done any drawings, I think they'd have been mentioned. A touching photo on one of those boards of he and his mum (?) at the doorway of Blakesley.

Did you brave it through the trench on your visit? Viv.


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Lyn - how did I miss you there on Saturday!! :)
I was there in the afternoon with my grandson (almost 8), who is very interested in history; they are doing Tudors next term, so we decided to go to the Hall. He was very interested in the video/film about the family.
I didn't spot any sketches either, but I'll check my (numerous) photos and I bought the book about the family as well, so I'll have a look through that.

Note - the exhibition finishes when the Hall closes for the winter at the end of this month.
 
hi les think i left the hall about 2.15 ish...had to run the gauntlet of a wedding party in the reception area lol..did you grandson have a go at that jigsaw puzzle in one of the rooms...i was admiring it thinking it was a place mat of some sorts..picked it up and all the bits fell onto the floor so i had to put it all back together again...lol

hi viv that is a lovely photo and i think it must be franks mom..didnt bother with the trenches as i had caused enough trouble with the jigsaw puzzle ha ha..

lyn
 
Hi Lyn
We arrived at about the time you left!! How bizarre! Yes, he completed the jigsaw!

I've consulted the book on the family's war, which is very interesting and I think that I've unearthed the reason why he joined that regiment - it says that although it's not clear why Frank he joined that regiment, it could be connected with the fact that the family business was paint and varnish manufacturer (Thomas Merry & Co, 75,& 76 Suffolk Street and Swallow Street. Varnish works were in Lionel Street.
John Nash & his brother Paul were embedded as artists in the Artists Rifles regiment. There are a couple of panels of Nash's in the exhibition - and I think that the jigsaw was also a Nash picture.
 
ahh that would explain it i think then les...thanks for that info yes i bet you came in not long after i left then...it was the jigsaw pic that caught my eye...it was very good and i was thinking to myself if they sold that design in place mats i would have bought one...couldnt see any in the little shop though and how lovely to see the younger generation showing an interest in our history...great stuff

lyn
 
This could be interesting - an exhibition at Blakesley Hall of the family role in WW1. They've an interactive trench there too - sounds good but I doubt it has the thigh deep mud, the crumbling parapets, heavy shell fire and the tangled barbed wire. I dunno, health and safety has us all wrapped up in cotton wool these days!!! Seriously though, it looks like a good visit for children too. Viv.

Heh :adoration: Well my late lamented OU Tutor Arthur Marwick used to say, places like this have to be a bit of a represntative 'catch-all' in order to work, and of course there is no way possible to convey the sense of anxiousness, horror and sheer terror that must have been all-pervasive in the real thing.

What I personally enjoy about Blakesley Hall in general (and this exhibition in particular) is that it isn't overblown, and in the exhibition the story is told well yet doesn't duck at least some of the sheer nastiness of the conflict. I personaly hope that BMAG does at least make the film available after the closure of the exhibition. It would be a shame if such an excellent piece of work were shelved.

The exhibition is a very good place for kids to visit too. Maybe some really young ones won't get the whole message (they'll find the activities fun), but with some of the older ones at least part of the message will seep in: That has to be a good thing.

Best wishes

Graham :friendly_wink:
 
A little more history of this fascinating Building...with thanks to Marie Fogg's book on the Smalbrokes, and the Birmingham Library

The Smalbrokes of Birmingham

The Parish of Yardley, in which Blakesley Hall stands is first mentioned in 972AD, when it belonged to the Benedictine Abbey of Pershore. The population grew until 1348, when the Black Death (bubonic plague) wiped out over two hundred villages in the Midlands alone. One effect of the Black Death was that surviving families became wealthier, as the available land was shared between fewer people.

The Smalbroke family are known to have been living in Yardley as early as 1275, and in 1440 John Smalbroke was Yardley's first recorded yeoman (yeomen were landowner-farmers who could be called on to serve as jurors) - so this family survived the plague years. The Smalbrokes and another ancient Birmingham family, the Colmores, rivalled each other for wealth and status. At times the rivalry led to fisticuffs, running battles and lawsuits, though there were also marriages between the two families.

The Smalbrokes have been a long established family in Birmingham dating as far back as the 13[SUP]th[/SUP] Century.' The family appear again in the 15[SUP]th[/SUP] Century in Tax Rolls and Court Records. John Smalbroke, yeoman/ was mentioned in 1440 when he was reported for:
having on Monday after the feast of St. Andrew the Apostle .... broken at Solyhull the close of John Fulford of Solyhull and ravished Margaret, his wife, and taken her and 10s of silver coin with other goods of the said John, to wit, a bed worth 13s.4d, three pairs of sheets worth 14s 4d and a paten of brass worth 6s, and was outlawed for the same, though at the time of the proclamation ....

He was in the King's service beyond the sea in the town of Caen, therefore the King pardons him the said felony and outlawry.

A Richard Smalbroke is recorded on the charity deeds of Yardley in 1463 and in 1468 a William Smalbroke is mentioned in relation to the Guild of Knowle.

In 1498 John Smalbroke and others were granted a croft by Thomas Mason, called 'Demes Croft' lying in the lea leading to the Manor House." In 1511/12 Richard Smalbroke was recorded as holding 'one croft of pasture called Alcotts More with four other crofts adjacent to the same, near Yardley Waye and the bridge called Newe bridge and the torrent called Cole Broke' for which he 'pays 3s.l0d, per annum.' The name John Smalbroke is mentioned again on a list of persons receiving the King's general pardon in 1509/10

It states: John Smalbroke of Yardley, Worcs; weaver, yeoman, Hostrekeeper, rentgaderer, under-bailiff and receiver, of Yardley, 8 June

Both John and Richard Smalbroke are mentioned again in the Yardley Tax Roll 1552, as having houses in Church End Quarter. Richard also had land in Bromhall Quarter, near lands belonging to the Lords of Blakey.

By the 1550s, Richard Smalbroke (I) owned land at Yardley and in Birmingham, where he was a prosperous mercer and a bailiff. In the 1553 Survey of Birmingham, Smalbroke land appears to include the building now known as the Old Crown in Deritend. The building (which did not become an inn until the seventeenth century) had been the priest's house, guildhouse and school of the Guild of St John the Baptist, which was dissolved in 1547.

After the Dissolution, Richard Smalbroke was involved in negotiations to use land of another dissolved Birmingham guild, the Guild of the Holy Cross, for the new King Edward VI School at the former Guild Hall in New Street. He became one of the first governors of the new school, which replaced the school in Deritend. Perhaps as a reward
for his role in the negotiations, somehow he came into possession of the Deritend building and quickly sold on the priest's house in 1551.

When he died in 1575, the remainder of the building was inherited by his elder son, Richard (II). In 1589 Richard (II) sold it, almost certainly financing the building of Blakesley Hall in 1590 from the proceeds. He may well have had an earlier house demolished to make way for his new home. Shards of cooking pots and jugs, dating from the thirteenth century, have been found associated with an area of cobbled floor beneath the present house. Blakesley was modern and fashionable: it had fireplaces with brick chimneys, glazed windows, and an upper floor with rooms opening off a gallery. Opening the massive front-door, made of two layers of thick oak boards and still with its original hinges and locking system, Richard would have passed beneath the carved lintel over the porch which reads:

'OMN(I)POTENS D[OMI]N[U]S P]RO]TECTOR SIT DOM[US] HUI[USj'
('May the Almighty Lord protect this House'); below this are Richard's initials.

Richard's son Robert Smalbroke was dead by 1603, so when Richard himself died in 1613 Blakesley passed to his granddaughter, Robert's daughter Barbara. In 1614 she married.Henry Devereux of Castle Bromwich Hall.

After his death she married Aylmer Foliot of Pirton Court, Pershore. Aylmer and Barbara lived at Blakesley Hall through the period of the Civil War, the house resounding with the chatter of their twelve children. Their eldest son, Aylmer junior, inherited the house on his mother's death in 1679, when he was 59. He died unmarried in 1684 and
left the house to his brother, Robert Foliot. A year later Robert sold Blakesley to the Reverend Dr Henry Greswolde, Rector of Solihull. Over the next two centuries the Greswoldes lived at Malvern Hall, Solihull, and let Blakesley Hall to tenant farmers.

Three generations of the Hopkins family lived and farmed at Blakesley from 1768- 1849. In the 1880s a succession of short tenancies led to the house and farm buildings becoming dilapidated, and in 1899 the Greswoldes sold it. It was bought, with two acres, by Henry Donne. He had the house restored and gardens laid out.
The following year he sold the property at auction. This time the buyer was Thomas Merry, a Birmingham paint and varnish manufacturer. The Merry family lived at Blakesley Hall until Tom's death in 1932, when it was again put up for auction, and bought by the Birmingham Common Good Trust on behalf of Birmingham Corporation, and from 1935, is now a Museum.

There is lots more, and the story of the feuds with the Colmores here:
https://nonsequitur.freeforums.org/post6991.html?hilit=Blakesley Hall#p6991


Blakesley Hall 1905 PC.jpgBlakesley Hall 2 Pond.jpgBlakesley Hall History print 1.jpgBlakesley Hall 3  Merry Family.jpgYardley Manor Map.jpg
 
Love the photo in the last post Dennis of the Merry's (?) with their hay rakes. Think they're having a bit of a joke with those rakes. There's got to be a story in there; the chap in the back row wearing his pith helmet, probably served in the South African wars; the terribly 'correct' grandmother hanging on to her victorian dress style and a bygone era, the young ladies in their flimsy summer Edwardian dresses, and the long suffering father/grandfather with all those women to contend with. Looks to be about early 1900s, so probably no worries as such about the First World War which would later change all that. Viv.
 
Blakesley Hall to appear in the BBC 4 production of 'Hidden Killers of the Tudor Home' on 20 January. Viv.

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Just caught up with this programme. Some good interior shots (well I'm assuming it was the interior of Blakesley Hall - it wasn't named during the programme). A few interesting points about the structure of Tudor buildings. No wonder many Tudor buildings disappeared, the bricks of the chimneys weren't up to burning wood or coal at high temperatures and consequently exploded. Other dangers lurked in the floor material of straw where only the top layer was regularly replaced, leaving the lower layer undisturbed for over 20 years! Imagine the infestations. A revealing programme. Viv.
 
Yes it was Blakesley Hall. I recognised the interiors from my visit (last August). And they were credited at the end (along with the Birmingham Museums Trust).


At least having a Tudor documentary that for once was about the people and not the Royal family and their court!
 
With this Wolf Hall drama, it's all Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell! (again). Think that period has been done too much.


There would have been no running water or heating (other than the fire up the chimney). Someone would have to remove all the waste from the house (due to plumbing and bathrooms not being invented until centuries later!).
 
Hi Jennyann,

I have just caught up with your thread about the will of Charles Hopkins, I noticed you said you had a few more wills, have you any in the name of WEST. One of my ancestors was a coal dealer and used too deliver coal to Blakesley Hall in the 1800's.

BRAMCOTE.
 
Just been looking at the photos on here, what a stunning house! I found a photo of the Hall which shows a cottage alongside it. They seem to share the same footpath. The gate is rustic which has now been replaced by more sturdy gates. Unfortunately the cottage has now gone, but a barn seems to remain. The cottage must have been part of the farm for the Hall. Is the barn now part of the museum too? I hope so, as it gives a nice snapshot of the development and community of Blakeskey through time. Viv.
 

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Their website suggests that the Barn is available for hire - seats 60 and is ideal for informal events. It can also be used for weddings - original oak beams and flagstone floor.

Janice
 
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