from the Yateley Society Newsletter no.47 November 1991

A STEWARD AT YATELEY HALL

by Valerie Kerslake

Companies interested in setting themselves up in Yateley Hall were so slow to make up their minds that the owner allowed The Yateley Society to open the house to the public again in September. This time the call was for stewards rather than guides, and the public could wander around at their own pace without the bottleneks that caused such difficulties at the first opening last July. "Richard Johnston's history of the house and detailed room-by-room- guide were on sale, and there were brief notes displayed in each room, so that the stewards' main duties were to prevent the paintwork being kicked and the chairs sat upon. More positive guiding was necessary upstairs where people tended to get lost amongst the little flights of steps and angular passages and in the maze of interlocking rooms in the attic.

Most of the house was empty, but on the staircase and in the wide, pine-panelled hall and two adjoining downstairs rooms there were pictures and antiques lent by a local firm. Stewards not otherwise occupied could contemplate their elegance and study the information on the price labels. The owner of the furniture was also around, an extra pair of eyes especia11y welcome when visitors were growing weary and children bored.

I took up my position in the dining and ball room at the south eastern corner of the house, surprised to find this serene and dignified room still unattended. It was built about 1800 and remodelled in 1871 by Norman Shaw who put in the blue Delft tiled fireplace, high panelling end floor to ceiling bay window looking onto the canal and gardens beyond. The newly painted panelling gleamed white beneath pale blue walls and ceiling (but why aquamarine so close to the cobalt blue of the ti1es?). Visitors had already arrived by ten o'clock and continued to flow through the building until after four, never crowding unduly, but at such a steady rate that I wondered whether our car park attendants had devised some cunning system of staggering. Many friends went by, some new, some I had not seen for years - rather like a party without the clutter of plates and glasses. All sorts of information came my way too. Mrs Lovell, who was brought up at the Hall, her mother being on the domestic staff, remembered the hours she had had to sit here sewing with the grown up ladies at the dining room table while Miss de Winton Corry read aloud — very tedious for a little girl who longed to be out of doors. Preparing for a ball was more fun; the whole household was required to polish the superb sprung floor, on which we were standing, by sliding up and down in padded slippers. Later I learnt that this same floor had weeds growing between the boards when restoration began five years ago.

A wide archway led into a former classroom added in the 1950s, and here the Society's exhibition attracted a good deal of attention in spite of having been on show several times since May. Of particular interest was an extra board with photographs of this room and others in the 1920s when they were in a more than fully furnished state.

The children behaved fairly well, I thought, recalling the dreadful tedium of accompanying my parents around stately homes. They peered up the chimney and wiggled the heavy wooden shutters folded back beside the window, but showed a worrying tendency to trail their fingers along the walls as they rounded corners, and I failed to interest them in the little pictures on the fireplace files. There were fifty-eight of these, each depicting a scene from the Bible. I found Jonah with an endearingly monstrous whale, a raven bringing crusts to Elijah, Job and his comforters, the ark both before and after the flood and many from the New Testament. Anyone with a good knowledge of the Bible could probably have identified them all but chapter and verse were quoted on each tile. I was told that there had been quite a lot more until 1988 when thieves who stole three fireplaces from upstairs prised off parts of this one too.

As far as I could see, the day passed smoothly -- although anything might have been going on at the other end of this immensely long house. There was some anxiety at my end when an Alsatian turned up in the medieval hall which held furniture and knick-knacks worth thousands of pounds, The dog sat tranquilly enough beside its mistress, but are not Alsatians notoriously unpredictable, and suppose it suddenly bounded an to the Regency sofa or wrapped its unmuzzled jaw around a Georgian leg? We stewards conferred and agreed on no action but still greater vigilance, and happily it soon became apparent that its owner was also co-owner of the furniture and ornaments.

Outside the window groups of visitors were enjoying the sun and bringing life and colour to the new formal gardens and arched bridge across the canal, while a couple of children were somehow inducing little silvery fish to leap from the water. Let us hope that the new tenants of the Hall will appreciate the house and grounds as much as everyone did on this open day, and that from time to time they may allow local people to see it again.

Back to 1991: 10th Anniversary Exhibition

(c) The Yateley Society 2008

Page Exhib.1991.5