Published at 09:42, Friday, 24 July 2009

AT WESTER Hall – for rent near Humshaugh – spare a glance for the stone dovecote in the garden. It is a link to a distant and illustrious past for this partly 19th century villa.

Up for rent: Wester Hall – home to London merchants and an African explorer who was also a war hero.

The dovecote-cum-summerhouse is all that remains of a walled garden which encircled the original Wester Hall. Its ambitious builder in 1732 was William Smith Esq.

This Smith was probably a scion of the dynasty of Smiths who bought nearby Haughton Castle and estate – including Wester Hall land – from the Widdringtons a century before.

Robert Walter Smith had deep pockets. He paid £2,500 to William Widdrington – not far off a cool £4 million based on average earnings today.

When the Smiths bought Haughton Castle they invested in more history than most people would find comfortable, including a troublesome ghost.

It was Ranulf de Haughton who began the castle’s history, putting up a chunky, one-storey hall-house surrounded by a thick wall or barmkin in the 13th century.

Over the next few decades Ranulf’s sons and grandsons stepped up a gear, slapping on extensions and throwing up towers until Haughton qualified as a proper castle in 1373.

In 1541 the Armstrongs, Elliots and Crosiers almost captured the castle from its then owners the Swinburnes. The raid scooped nine horses and goods worth £40 – nearly a banker’s annual salary today.

Presumably some time after the Armstrongs got away with those Haughton horses, they rode back for more but met disaster. Reiver chief Archie Armstrong was captured and left to muse on his mistakes in Haughton’s dungeon.

Unfortunately Sir Thomas Swinburne then set off for York, leaving no orders to feed the prisoner. When Swinburne returned Armstrong was dead, his gnawed arms proof of desperate attempts to stave off thirst and starvation.

The revengeful reiver has allegedly haunted Haughton ever since.

Perhaps the moaning of armless Archie was a reason for the Smiths deciding to spread themselves to Wester Hall? The two family lines lived within a few hundred yards of each other and apparently flourished, if the Smith-full registers in Simonburn church are anything to go by?

William Smith expressed his individuality by having his new mansion at Wester Hall built in an unusual L-shape. The Smiths also flouted fashion when they added the baroque dovecote to Wester Hall’s grounds.

Garden architecture was scorned by the great (Northumberland-born) landscape designer Capability Brown, whose word was law on all beyond the back door from 1742 onward.

But the Wester Hall super-gazebo was obviously a much-loved project for the Smiths. They certainly didn’t stint money on its structure.

It’s thought they brought in the same gifted mason who worked at Simonburn church, to prettify their dovecote. Certainly experts reckon the carving styles are much the same.

After about a century, William Smith’s rebellious L-shaped house was altered into a more orthodox rectangular block, with the addition of a modern wing to tuck away the servants.

The updated Wester Hall was enjoyed by late 19th century owners the Blindells.

The Census of 1891 has the London-born ship-owning and coal-trading brothers William and John Blindell settled up North with their families, plus a cook, maid, and gardener Matthew Maddison to tend Wester Hall’s baroque summerhouse.

Then for at least a decade from 1929, Wester Hall was home to a hero of the British Empire – Col. Henry George Gandy, DSO, OBE, RE.

Gandy was born in Alnwick and spent his life crisscrossing the pink parts of the globe before choosing Tynedale for his declining years.

The young soldier began his large medal collection in 1901, aged 22, in the South African war against the Boers. He saw action against the “Mad Mullah” in Abyssinia and Somaliland. He was a champion shot in the Royal Engineers – Northumbrian Division.

When serious injury limited his military career Gandy turned explorer, achieving an African Queen-style exploit along uncharted Sudanese rivers, and braving swamp fever to survey for telegraph lines.

When Gandy wasn’t battling the rapids and hippos, he was painting them in watercolours, which earned him a modest reputation as an artist back in Blighty.

In the First World War ‘Old Contemptible’ Gandy was mentioned in despatches and won his DSO. Foreign office service in Lisbon, Gibraltar and Ceylon ( Sri Lanka) followed, before the old soldier could enjoy his well-earned retirement, enjoying the North Tyne views, spreading lawns and top-notch dovecote at Wester Hall.

l Wester Hall at Haughton near Humshaugh is offered for rental via Smiths Gore of Corbridge.

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