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Published: April 12th 2016
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On the corner of North Parade stands a fairly non-descript shop. It is a weekend. The shop is closed. The blinds are down. The business trades as a chiropractor and health shop in the modern era and it is only the small plaque above the front door that advises of it’s place in UK history. “
Margaret Thatcher. Britain’s First Woman Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland was born here”. It is interesting to note that it is only a small slate plaque that has been erected. The Grantham Civic Society has the usual circular blue plaques on other buildings of interest elsewhere in the town, but not this one. The other motorists and pedestrians continue past without so much as a casual glance.
In the day when Margaret Hilda Roberts resided here, the building was a grocer’s shop. She was only a Grocer’s Daughter – immortalised in the title of the 3
rd album by those 80’S songsters, The Blow Monkeys. The exterior might have been glossy electronic pop for the masses to keep the record company sales happy, but Doctor Robert and his gang were busy singing in the main about Margaret Hilda in a lot
of the lyrics.
“It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way”. “Out With Her”. “(Celebrate) The Day After You”. They all concentrate on their main target.
“The Grantham Growler” was a bit more to the point with title, but that was only a B Side or available as a bonus track on the reissues of the LP. In a week when heavy industry suffered another possibly fatal blow with the announcement by Tata that they were withdrawing, the queen of the free market economy from this humble abode would no doubt be nodding in approval. The Iron Lady indeed. They call it progress in certain circles.
North Parade remains a tidy terrace. The sun glistened of the church tower of St Mary’s across the road. The adjacent Georgian terrace block stands immaculately next to it.
We retrieved the car and headed 3 miles out of town to Belton House. Belton was one of the country seats of the Brownlow family. John Brownlow was the start of a dynasty of lawyers, who set about re-investing his inconsiderable fortune in land. His main client was HRH Elizabeth 1, from whom he apparently earned the tidy sum of
£4,000 per year. In the late 1500s, that was a huge sum and equivalent apparently to £6 million a year in current terms. He was presumably working for other clients too, so the lad had a tidy number going. In between the often chaotic times when other royal associates were losing their heads, Brownlow managed to keep his and prospered. The result of his endeavours in Lincolnshire is Belton. The current 92 room house was completed in 1667 and it remained in the family until being passed to the National Trust in 1984. The house was only ever intended as a winter retreat to exploit the hunting potential – deer still roam - with the family spending large parts of the year at their other estate down south and of course, the London townhouse.
One of the more colourful residents over the years was Peregrine Francis Adelbert Cust, 6th Baron Brownlow. During the 1930s he was a close friend of the Prince of Wales – later to become King Edward VIII and ended up getting caught up in the Wallis Simpson scandal. Did Belton play host to the couple? It was old Peregrine who accompanied her on
the flight to Paris. Once the abdication had become reality, he tried to bail out of the former King’s circle and then refused to attend the wedding of the then Duke of Windsor to Mr Simpson. The couple regarded him as disloyal and the Duchess of Windsor apparently never forgave him. It appears Peregrine was caught between a rock and a hard place of the old and new royal lines, although they must have made up at some point as Charlie apparently came to stay when he was in the training with the RAF.
The car park was busy. The addition of an adventure playground in the forest made it ideal Easter Holiday parent amusement territory. We booked on one of the timed entry below stairs tours. Upstairs, Downstairs. The rise of Downton Abbey has awoken the visiting public to how things were in the servant’s quarters in these big houses. It was spartan and cold. The myth of all the servants mucking in together aka Downton Abbey was apparently a myth and the lower graded members of staff would wait on their superiors as well as the household in some form of apprentice training scheme. I
was surprised how much the salary was for a butler in relation to modern terms, all complete with live in accommodation, food and the probable promise of a cottage on the estate in retirement. The wine cellar and the silver were under lock and key. The butler and the Master held the only keys. There was also a beer cellar and it was quite late that a ration of beer with meals ceased to be part of the pay package. The guide pointed out the bits of missing silver. It transpired that local girl, Margaret, had pulled a couple of strings when she was Prime Minister and borrowed some of the Belton collection for state banquets at Number 10 Downing Street. They eventually invested in their own, but a couple of the spoons went AWOL on the return journey to Belton. The other most interesting pieces were two soldiers figures, presented by the troops stationed at the House in the World Wars.
The newly formed Machine Gun Corps was stationed in Belton House grounds from it’s inception in 1915 onwards. A tent city of 12-14,000 sprung up in the grounds and all members underwent training here. This
was a large problem for Grantham itself with thousands of young men keen to enjoy themselves in the local town. A local curfew law was added, restricting the movement of women in the town between the hours of 8pm and 7am the following morning to try and keep temptation out of the soldiers way. It was speculated that a great many moved to Grantham from nearby Midland cities with a view to putting that temptation in the shop window ….. for a fee. Grantham swore in the UK’s first female Police Officer with full powers of arrest, Edith Smith, to deal with part of the problem. There is a small museum about the Machine Corps tucked away behind the bookshop and the café.
We headed outside into the grounds. The centre piece is the formal garden behind the house and that leading to the Orangery. A constant stream of bored and irritating children wandered everywhere behind their parents, clearly unhappy to dragged along on a family day out. The Mirror Lake did what it said on the tin and reflected the nearby trees. A few geese waited patiently for any discarded sandwiches. The spring daffodil
show was on it’s last legs and a few bluebells were poking up into the spring sunshine. The boat house on the main lake had received a makeover. The main grounds in front of the house were being prepared for the imminent Belton Horse Trials. The jumps and dressage were laid out and presumably the lawns would soon be knee deep in Barbours and Hunter wellies.
The house is perhaps not as grand as you would anticipate. The Library on the first floor was my favourite room. A writing desk looks straight through the window and down the long entrance drive. The house is covered in greyhound motifs. There was an apparent failed move to change the family coat of arms to match. Check out the door handles, the weather vane, the arms of the benches in the grounds. We could see a steady stream of cars leaving the grounds from the views from the house - it was time to leave before the exit system from the car park could cause chaos.
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