Who will own up to playing in Hough End Hall in the 1960s?

In the space of just a few weeks Hough End Hall has begun to reveal some more of its past.

What is exciting is that this is not the dim distant past but the sort of history that seldom is recorded in anything but the briefest detail.

This is the period of the 1950s and 60s which while it is at present short on documentary evidence is rich in memories, and these are now bubbling up to the surface and with them a new collection of pictures.

The memories are mainly of those who played in the grounds, dared their friends to creep inside the Hall and made fun in the barns and other outhouses.

My friend Faith recalled adventurous days playing by the Bumps which was that stretch of land running east alongside the Brook behind the Hall while June remembered, “we used to hang about here nearly every night it was a farm then and sat on that wall” and Veronica told me about the geese and the mysterious window.

And so these pictures by Roger Shelley taken I am guessing in the mid 60s pretty much sums up this new set of stories.

I have no idea who the young people are and I suppose Roger fell across them during the photo shot and like kids do they just got into the pictures.

They will be grown up now, some with their own children and no doubt would be horrified if their youngsters hung from the rafters of an old barn.

I know I would but from the little my lads have let on they performed equally dangerous dares down at the Brook and if I am honest I can recall similar daft and mildly dangerous antics.

All of which is a lead in to an appeal for more stories about Hough End Hall to compliment an interesting article from the Ancient Monuments Society about the hall in the 1920s and 30s.

But that is for another time.

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