Today’s Object of the Week is piece of history returning to its North Yorkshire home in time for Christmas. In the first of a series of festive-themed objects Sarah Mayhew Craddock, curator at Kiplin Hall & Gardens, tells the touching story of one family’s connections to the house.
WINTER is as much a time of reflection as it is a time for looking forward to the new season in an historic house museum and gardens; it is with sadness and joy that a new object is being donated to Kiplin’s unique collection of Kiplin family possessions this festive season.
A few weeks ago we received an email from a lady from Richmond, Gail Wagstaff. Gail’s mother, Grace Wagstaff (nee Metcalfe), lived at Kiplin Mill on the Kiplin Hall estate with her family when she was a child. Grace Wagstaff didn’t talk about her time at Kiplin Mill in any great detail but it appears that her family had lived there from the 1881 census when Kiplin was owned by Walter Cecil Carpenter. The Kiplin estate passed down to Walter Carpenter’s daughter in 1904. Sarah Carpenter and her husband sold off the most lucrative of Kiplin’s assets, and then sold what remained of the diminished estate to her cousin, Bridget Elizabeth Talbot in 1937. Bridget Talbot was a well-connected, committed, and creative lady who worked tirelessly to save Kiplin from falling into rack and ruin. Miss Talbot had spent many happy childhood holidays visiting Kiplin and adored the estate and surrounding countryside. Consequently, when she relieved her cousin of the burden of the estate Miss Talbot continued to campaign doggedly to save the Jacobean country house and this corner of North Yorkshire that she held so dear.
When almost all other avenues had been exhausted, Miss Talbot enlisted the help of local people to perform in a pageant that she had penned, Farewell to Kiplin. Local and national newspapers carried the story of the production that warned of the imminent demolition of the national treasure that is Kiplin Hall.
Gail Wagstaff recounts how her grandparents, James and Elsie Metcalfe, told stories of having taken part in Miss Talbot’s 1953 pageant.
Programme cover for the 1953 pageant
Miss Talbot must have been grateful to and fond of the family as she gave a plate with the Talbot family crest on it to Grace as a wedding present when she married in 1955. The plate hung on the wall of Gail’s parents’ home ever since. Gail said that it was“her mother’s wish, when she passed away, that the plate is returned to Kiplin Hall.”
... and so, this Christmas, Gail is returning it.
It means a great deal when such personal items with very definite provenance are returned to Kiplin, back where they belong. What a wonderful Christmas present it is to be welcoming this missing piece of history back to Kiplin!
* Kiplin Hall & Gardens, between Northallerton and Richmond, is now closed for the winter. It will reopen in February next year, visit kiplinhall.co.uk for more details
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