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 Bulletin – October 2019
Smile at us, pay us, pass us, but do not quite forget,
For we are the people of England, who never have spoken yet.
G K Chesterton. The Secret people.
Except that three years ago you did ask us to speak, and, Oh! how you hate what we said.I think it’s true to say that just about everybody, including those of us who had campaigned to leave, expected “Remain’ to win. All the great and the good, including the Bank of England, prophesied immediate disaster if we voted ‘Leave.’ But it didn’t happen.
Three years on, and they still haven’t given up. They hide behind the fig leaf of thwarting a ‘No deal’ Brexit, saying this would create economic chaos. Would that be the same chaos as last time? Are we scared of a little disruption? Now the Lib Dems have torn off the fig leaf and openly backed ‘Remain.’ I suppose that is honesty of a sort.
My opposition to our membership of the EU stems from my observations in business. Automation and large scale organisations are good for making cars, but not so good for managing people. Last week I was at a meeting in an Ashby office, which used to be the cottage hospital where four of my children were born. The new giant hospitals have enabled us to embrace new techniques and economies of scale but, Oh dear, something has been lost along the way. The European Union is an attempt to unify twenty eight countries with different cultures and needs. It isn’t working for countries on the mediterranean littoral, and certainly doesn’t work for us.
