Saving the Manor EP04 - Spirit in the Stables

Do you believe in Spirits?

There was a big debate here when I approached the subject of getting a Medium… Here is the truth about what happened…

Since we got the place, Dean and I have never felt anything weird around the Estate, if anything we get a very peaceful and calm vibe. Have you ever been in a house and felt something odd? Let me tell you, within my years in Estate Agency (Real Estate), I have seen many houses and in some of them I felt extremely uneasy and uncomfortable, so I genuinely do believe in energies that a house or place can retain.

We had a neighbour that told me, that as soon as we started work on the house, spirits would go to her house as we were disturbing them… I mean I felt a bit offended by it because we weren’t trying to evict any resident ghosts from the house! I actually always wanted to have a NICE resident ghost, so I could say we had a ghost in the house, what a conversation starter right?, but I have not been that lucky.

It is true that Deans mum told us once that there was a spot within the Estate that she had an airy feeling and Deans sister told us the same on the same spot weeks after… coincidence? I don’t think so!

My Mum is a lot more spiritual person, and she claimed that when she was staying here, she was calling my name and she heard my voice replying to her, to later find out that I was on the phone in a different location on the Estate (so I promise that it wasn’t me joking around!)

That last possible ghost story made me ask production if they could find a medium we could invite to the house… Vicky the medium was a lovely lady but I don’t think she was the real deal… if you have ever watched Harry Potter (I am a big fan!) I was imagining they would find someone like Professor Trelawney… Big Glasses, very eccentric with a flair for the dramatic!! That’s what I really hoped for, I wanted someone that could stop us suddenly and she would say that she was getting a vibe, tell us a story and then burn some rosemary to purify the space! haha I have obviously watched too much TV, but how entertaining would that have been? I would have also loved them to reference the name of a person that we know lived here, you know to give some palpable facts that no one could deny!

Dean was and has always been a skeptic, so as we were walking around with the medium he was just thinking what a way to waste my time when I have thousands of things to do! that is exactly how Deans mind works… and when he reads this he will laugh and agree with it! (I DID)

Anyway… the medium told us of two deaths within the Estate which was quite unsettling and I genuinely didn’t know how to respond to lift the mood as I could only ask questions to get a yes or no answer and what do you ask in those situations?! so if you want to lift the mood ask about donkeys right? (Watch the episode if you don’t know what I am talking about?)

The Cellar

Having a cellar like the one we have, was screaming to us to make something special with it, not literally Vicky says there aren’t any ghosts down there! haha.

Our philosophy when creating or converting a space is to restore it, thinking about how we will use the space, we try to think about making a space practical, making it look good, but of course being able to enjoy it, and I feel cellars have always been the underrated spaces that are purely used for storage… That’s why we really wanted to make the spaces for storage inviting enough that we could feel, if we wanted to, we could have dinner down there surrounded by inspiring spaces.

We always had a very defined vision for that space so we didn’t really struggle there but I am going to tell you a little story that we never shared on the show…

When we first bought the Estate and checked the cellars (which were very scary and full of dirt and mould) I watched a documentary where they talked about cellars in French Chateaus… in the documentary they explained how in some instances people would brick in certain chambers within a cellar to store their most valuable wines, I finished watching the documentary and I got a torch and I went straight down to our cellars… There was a bricked-in entrance!!! I run to find Dean SO excited screaming that we may have just hit the jackpot! haha only because there was a bricked-in door within the cellar and from the 15 minutes documentary I obviously made the assumption that they did the same at our place! (come on, anyone would have thought that too!)

Dean was playing it cool, while I was jumping around saying how I was going to spend the money… (typical me, already spent it before it arrives haha) he was getting excited as he got a hammer and said… point me in the right direction! so we started taking bricks down from the sealed opening… 30mins past… one hour… after two hours, and coming up with all sorts of ideas, from being a locked cellar to a secret passageway, we realised that there was nothing behind there… just soil! what a downer right? imagine how we felt! we understood that the opening was put in place in case that the cellars were ever extended or they were originally going to be bigger and they just scaled back…. or… it was another cellar but they just filled it in… we try not to dwell on this ides because we would want to shovel it all out!

In any case we made the most charming root cellar, wine cellar and seating space and although we are still not rich from finding rare treasured wines we were so pleased with the space and for us was the last piece of the jigsaw to complete the servants staircase.

6 months after filming the space, we got a severe mould problem down there… white mould growing on all the walls again after three years without… turns out after adding a door on the cellar and a roof on the boot room upstairs meant that it had little ventilation…. Another thing back on our list to sort.. typical hey!

Beautifying the Cottages Frontage

They say that it takes 3 seconds to make an assumption about a place… The curb appeal is very important and for years I really wanted to add flowers to the front of the cottages! It was my way to show that we are slowly finishing spaces and for the local people to see that we are proud with what we are doing (and also their way to see that things are happening behind the walls)

I actually tried to ask our county council to add trees on the street as the pavements are big enough, I researched all the paremeters to be eligible, I tried contacting Trees for Streets which is a charity who works towards adding more trees within towns and cities (as its proven to have great benefits to residents) and of course I offered to pay for the trees and to look after the trees so it does not cost tax payers to look after them but I never got a response… So I had to settle being able to add some greenery and flowers within what I was able to do myself.

The window boxes solution was fairly simple… We can’t be watering it daily because honestly we don’t have the time, so we found self irrigation pots that have a water reservoir so we could filled them up once every couple of weeks so our window boxes would not look shabby! based on those pots we made the actual planter in a way that we could slot in the pots but you couldn’t see it from the street, the idea is that we can change the planting very easily based on the different seasons, so we can rotate the planting not having to discard any of the plants.

Our hope is that local businesses and homes after seeing our cottages, fill their windows and shops with flowers to make the village prettier, and me… I will keep fighting to get more trees on the streets… I might even start a petition!