Clearwell Castle 1929 - after the fire
Courtesy of: Mrs Alice Yeates. Uploaded: 14 Feb 2008.
Clearwell Castle pictured shortly after the fire of 16th of March 1929.
Parts of the building are blackened by the fire and a ladder remains propped against a wall. At this time the castle was occupied by Colonel and Mrs Vereker
Colonel Vereker occupied the castle from when he retired to Clearwell in 1911
until he died in 1947. ("Clearwell
Castle Story", AAA Guide 1978)
Melvyn Jacobs added (Feb 2008): "I am told
by my mother Violet
Jacobs (nee Baldwin) that her mother Mable Baldwin was in service at the castle
at
the time of the fire and my grandad Ernest Baldwin carried Mrs Vereker from
the fire to safety".
Melvyn also added ".. (Ernest)
had a Jack Russell called Tiny. He used to sit Tiny under the bench seat on his
cap and challenged anyone to take the cap from the dog. No one in the 'Butchers'
ever achieved it. He also once sold his braces for a pint of scrumpy".
Bernard Yeates added (Feb 2008): '... Amazing how reading something can bring back long forgotten memories. I remember Ernie Baldwin very well, I believe he once sold his socks in the bar of the Butchers Arms for a pint of "rough zider", Especially I remember a story he once told me about the time when he was young and used to do work at the Castle for the Colonel. One particular saturday morning the Colonel asked Ernie and his friend ( can't remember who ) to oil the Library floor for a dance that evening. Being a tight old B ( Ernie's words ), he wouldn't buy wax polish but made his own polish from old engine oil and white spirit. However, Ernie and friend wanted to play football in the afternoon and knowing that to apply the 'special brew' and then polish it up to a good shiny finish would take most of the day so they decided to take a short-cut, i.e. no old engine oil, just the white spirit. Un-be known to them, the Colonel was in the conservatory which had a window which opened into the Library and the Colonel had been listening to their plan. He waited until they had finished and asked him to inspect their work which he did. To use Ernie's words,"he walked into the Library, bent down and rubbed his fingers across the floor, inspected his fingers and said, " Far too much engine oil for dancing, get the white spirit and wash off some of the oil". Poor old Ernie and friend spent the afternoon on their hands and knees instead of the football pitch pretending to take off the oil they hadn't put on in the first place'.
Elizabeth Kruidenier added (August 2009): "...I am looking for information on the family of Colonel Vereker with whom I stayed at Clearwell Castle as a child with my mother and brother at the begining of World War II-from late fall 1939 to July 1940. Colonel Vereker's wife's name was Lila and his children were called Louise and Neville. We left London when the bombing began, at their invitation. I remember that the Colonel had an unbelievably fascinating collection of birds' eggs in cases all marked and referenced. There were drawers and drawers of them of every imaginable color and shape and size, and he delighted in showing them off. I must have been almost 8 years old. My family name is Pitlik. My father was a Czech diplomat working for the Czech government in exile in London".
"I am now living in the USA and I am trying to write my memoirs for my children and grandchildren. Any information would be welcome. Thanks so much for your help. I would welcome any replies. I have such beautiful memories of that unexpected sojourn, despite the war and I was thrilled to find the old photos of the Castle, which I can show my family. I do have one story to add. One cold night during the late fall of 1939, we were all sleeping soundly, when we were awakened by a loud crash in our bedroom, which Andre and I shared with our mother. We were frightened to death because a huge chunk of the ceiling came down in our room and narrowly missed us. Of course we thought it was a bomb, which made it even more frightening, but it turned out to be only plaster, not nearly as exciting, but almost as lethal"
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