Wivenhoe Hall Spitler Abbot The Head Gardener in
Wivenhoe Hall always wore a bowler hat, and he smoked a pipe and the pipe
was always hanging from his mouth, be it lit or not, and because of it
hanging from his mouth it always had a dribble underneath the bowl that
ran down out of his mouth, and he was called ‘Spitler,’ Spitler
Abbott! Funny little man! But the Head Gardener at the Wivenhoe Hall,
nevertheless. Corrie Lawton,
Lord of the Manor My granddad was very
friendly with the Lord of the Manor, Corrie Lawton. But he was living at
Ballast Quay and he used to come and call for my granddad and Dr Squire,
and they used to go to the Rose and have a drink and a game of billiards.
And his wife had a baby and he had a sister-in-law who was a nurse, and
she came and nursed her sister, and she had a daughter. She came to my
granddad one day and said could I go and play with Evelyn? So I used to be
up there every day, and play there, until Corrie came home, and then I
used to run! He kept bloodhounds in the back yard. Poor Corrie, he came in
the First World War one night and called for my granddad, in the dark, he
never looked like a Lord of the Manor! And they went and had a drink and a
game of billiards and that was the last – he was killed in the War. Then they didn’t
seem to have much money and the estate was sold. I can remember, I was 12
when they had a marquee there, and Reginald Beard sold it. And I knew him
because he was a friend of my granddad’s, and it was my granddad told
him that this was for sale. And I think my back garden is a part of what
they cut up because this stands in an acre of ground, it goes out to
Ernest Road, and that was out there somewhere where this marquee was, and
there were a lot of men from London down, buying little bits. A pity when
it has to be sold like that, isn’t it. The end of
Wivenhoe Hall My
cousin Leslie has got a painting of the old Hall. I know it burned down, I
think it burned down in the night and no one was living there then. And
when it was sold, before the person had it, my sister-in-law and I went
and had a look over it, and we went upstairs, the third flight, where the
servants’ quarters were, I think, oh, poky little bedrooms! I said to my
sister-in-law, ‘This is a death trap.’ A dreadful place for them to
live. Hall fire The
Hall had this fire on a Saturday night, and I don’t know because I was
only about eight years old myself, I suppose, but it was a mystery I
think. That was the Saturday evening and they used to have a rocket go off
and the fire, well, it was the occasion of four or five years, perhaps!
And they opened those big gates at the top here for the fire engine. Well,
the fire engine! When you saw it, it was pathetic! I mean, though I was
only a kid, they only had an old hand cart, but when they unrolled - it
was hilarious! Afterwards, you could see the funny side when you got
older! I mean, talk about a comic turn! They were all old boys, they
unrolled this hose, and the water was just spurting out all over the
place! You couldn’t get any water through the hose! That was all coming
out! I think the police rung for Colchester Fire Brigade. The engine got
there but it was alight all over the place. Whether
it was deliberate - people said it was - I just don’t know. But it was
never built up or anything. It was rather a funny affair because the
people that were living there had gone off during the week, on holiday,
nobody seemed to know where they’d gone or when they were coming back or
anything. It was a bit weird, I think. Mr Barlow. But I didn’t really
know anything of them. The
people that bought it afterwards were a youngish couple. But we had never
seen the Hall at all, only just from the outside. But there was this high
wall, and there were tremendous great trees. But you never saw behind
that. It always seems to have been quite a mystery. But it’s quite
interesting to read about the people that did live there.
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