Welcome to Staunton Harold Hall
The Staunton Harold Estate is a traditional country estate of some 2000 acres, centred on the great Georgian mansion, Staunton Harold Hall. Family run, and ‘hands on’ in its management style, the estate has embraced modern uses for its diverse assets.
The Hall itself became a family home again in 2003, after fifty years of institutional use. With some eighty three rooms, the main building easily accommodates three generations of our family. Son-in-law, Tony Cantrill, has taken over the West Wing, now converted into high quality managed offices and conference facilities, known as LION COURT.
The suite of fine ‘State Rooms’ on the east and north front lend themselves to large functions, and here we host weddings and other events up to twelve times a year.
Our family’s involvement with Staunton Harold began in 1955, when we purchased the three farms at the core of the estate. These included the large Georgian stable block, which stood abandoned and ruinous. We put it in good repair, and in 1974 began its conversion to craft workshops and studios. Now known as the FERRERS CENTRE FOR ARTS AND CRAFTS this is a true ‘making’ centre with some eighteen businesses covering a range of disciplines. Most of our land is let to local farmers, but the four hundred acres of woodland we manage ourselves with a forestry team based at our estate sawmill. From here we sell firewood through the TEN MILE TIMBER COMPANY, and sawn material, mainly oak and larch, through Staunton Hardwoods, cut to customers’ requirements.
Our family business centres around maintaining and renting out property and a recent addition to this, built from our own timber, is DEERPARK LODGE. This is a holiday cottage, sleeping six, set among trees on a hill above the Hall. The hamlet of Staunton Harold includes a garden centre, in separate ownership, and a fine 17th century church, now in the care of the National Trust. We have become something of a walking and cycling centre, with adequate car parks and restaurants and seven routes radiating from the settlement.
Staunton Harold – June 2019 Bulletin
BREXIT! – don’t you just love it. A term that didn’t exist three years ago and a party two months old has split our country down the middle. It’s the English Civil War without the bloodshed. These day strangers will strike up a conversation about politics, though it’s often to damn all politicians.
Now we are due to pick a new Prime Minister. It surprises me that there are so many contenders for a task which has sunk the last four. They must see a solution which is not obvious to the rest of us.
The dire warnings from the great and the good at the time of the referendum have all proved false. So when Mark Carney at the Bank of England tells me that leaving without a deal will be disastrous I’m inclined to believe the opposite. We are hedged about by bureaucracy on every side; let’s hope that after we leave we can ditch at least some of it.
Overall I’m content with the direction of travel. We will leave by one means or another. We will not be bound by the Common Agricultural Policy, which costs a fortune and skews the farming sector in ways that don’t suit us. We have been the awkward squad from the outset; now we can go back to being good neighbours.
