kcooper

Published at 01:00, Friday, 26 October 2007

MEMORIES from long ago and far away were stirred by the report on Demesne Farm, Ebchester, on this page a few weeks ago.

Eighty year-old Peter Shout, from Cape Town, South Africa, got in touch with the Courant to share his reminiscences of childhood at Demesne Farm – then known simply as The Demesne.

Peter has lived in Africa for 60 years, but the former Hexham Grammar schoolboy (1938 - 44) has always kept in touch with “North Country affairs” via copies or snippets from the Courant sent to him by his sisters still living in Tynedale. That was how he knew that this newspaper 6,000 miles away had featured his childhood home.

Peter wrote: “My family, comprising at that time my father Leonard, my step-mother and five siblings, moved to Ebchester from Yorkshire in about 1929, where we rented The Demesne – the house in your piece – for about five years.

“During our association with the premises it was never known as Demesne Farm or Demesne House, but always THE DEMESNE. I believe this to be the correct name, as it would seem to indicate that it was the prime residence for the builders and owners.”

The Demesne was already well over 200 years old when the Shout family moved in. A date stone above the doorway records its foundation in 1705, when it was built by hospital charity The Sherburn Trust.

To raise money for good causes The Demesne had to be rented out to the highest bidder, and the initials “RF” on the date stone are a clue to the first residents, thought to be a family called Fewster.

Ralph Fewster of Ebchester, father of Elizabeth Fewster (1702-1730), is on the list of Durham’s Catholic Recusants, which meant he and his family were hemmed in by laws designed to suppress the Papists as a political threat. It was the 18th century’s equivalent of today’s War against Terror and just as deadly – the 1715 and 1745 rebellions, to replace the Georges of Hanover with the Stuarts, were rooted in religion.

As a little child playing in The Demesne, Peter came across a possible connection with this time of secret masses and hidden priests.

“My sister reminded me that we found a tunnel which ran from the cellar of The Demesne right up to the Nunnery up on the hill above the village on the high side,” said Peter.

“It was not possible to get far into it, as much of it had collapsed over the years. But the existence of this tunnel could slot in very well with the local history of the Recusants and might warrant further research and exploration.”

Or could the children have stumbled across the source of a local legend, The Ebchester Money Chest?

The story tells of a cave near the village, filled to the stalagtites with caskets of gold dating back to Roman times, linked to the surface by a long tunnel.

Just over a century ago, one local resident spent time, money and sanity searching for this hidden treasure. He sank several shafts down into the remains of Roman Vindomora which lie under and around modern Ebchester, but failed to find a single sesterce.

The disappointed digger was probably deluded by folk memories of an 1727 excavation which uncovered part of a tunnel-like Roman aqueduct to the once-sumptuous baths of Vindomora.

Peter and the other young Shouts were not too bothered about the historical importance surrounding The Demesne; they loved the house for its beautiful setting.

“As children growing up in Ebchester, we recall a very happy time,” said Peter.

“I attended my first school there at the age of four years, which would have been in 1931-2. This was the Church School just across the way from The Demesne and I recall the vicar at the time was a Mr Morgan. He used to visit to teach us our catechism.

“In your photograph the front garden of The Demesne appears considerably changed from what I remember. When we were there, there were a couple of gigantic ancient apple trees there which bore wonderful fruit each year, to which we always looked forward.

“The fields at the back running down to the river and the general surrounds offered many opportunities. I remember the annual regatta on the river being a great day. But I was only five or six at the time and my memories are not extensive.”

Peter’s youthful memories are also sketchy about The Demesne’s finest glory – its wall paintings which are thought to be among the earliest examples of the Chinoiserie trend in the North.

“As regards the Chinoiserie. I do not remember this,” said Peter.

“My only recollection in this connection is of extensive wooden wainscotting in more than one of the rooms, including the cellar which is where we found the entrance to the tunnel.”

It seems that a few wood panels nailed up in The Demesne’s biggest bedroom had concealed the Chinoiserie, thus depriving the Shout children from enjoying this wall-full of sepia paintings ..... little figures hunting in a pastoral landscape, lovers trysting under strange oriental trees, birds flying over many-roofed pagodas or domed temples. The quaint, naive mural looks like an image of England painted by a homesick geisha.

Art experts at the Bowes Museum think that The Demesne’s paintings probably date back to the time the house was built, and could have been inspired by a 1688 pattern book for DIY “japanning”.

But if Peter was unlucky to miss the Chinese-style wall paintings, he could be considered fortunate to avoid another secret of The Demesne – a past resident clinging to her earthly domain!

“My sister tells me that the house came with a resident ghost of a Lady in White,” he said.

“She remembers seeing a lovely lady in long white robes standing between our beds. But I don't recall meeting the lady!”

l The Demesne, also known as Demesne Farm, is for sale via Smiths Gore of Corbridge.

Published by http://www.hexhamcourant.co.uk