So who are they? Faces from Hough End Hall sometime in the 1960s

They smile back at us with a mix of impish fun and a tad bit of reserve and I would like to know who they were.

I have the names of two of the group and there is the promise of more to come.

Of course all of them will now be well into middle age but then in the mid 1960s when these pictures were taken they were young, full of beans and out for adventure.

And according to some others who have admitted to playing in the Hall that is exactly what they got including “raiding the Orchard at the back of the hall” to facing up the dare and entering the “haunted house.”

Now as a responsible parent I shudder at the thought of my lads risking their necks on such audacious ventures but just occasionally they offer up memories which were equally hair raising.

More over if I am honest I did just the same from playing on bombsites, exploring closed up cellars of derelict buildings and wandering the edge of the Thames down at low water at Woolwich.

So nothing new there then, except in the case of Hough End Hall it is bringing to the surface a whole new set of stories from a period when the building was pretty much an afterthought.

Its time as the centre of a farm were over as were its years as the home of the wealthy and it was yet to find a use as a restaurant bar and club.

All of which meant that there is little that has been written down about it during this time so I look forward to more memories, stories and maybe even the odd picture.

Pictures; the Hall in the mid 1960s from the collection of Roger Shelley, https://www.flickr.com/photos/photoroger/