Sharing Family Memories of a Special Place
14th January 2025
This year, the Archive Volunteers at Wentworth Castle Gardens have been privileged to meet several descendants of people who lived and worked on the estate, through our ‘Open Archive’ mornings. These were held on site every couple of months, with more to follow Tuesday 25th March and Tuesday 13 May 2025, 10.30 -12.30. You’ll be very welcome!
It is wonderful to hear memories and see family photographs – having pictures of people whose names exists in documents is brilliant. Sometimes we can answer their questions from our own archive knowledge and help solve a long-standing mystery.
This year the stories included tales about a Stainborough village medal awarded for service in the Great War; a father who helped start initiatives to regenerate Wentworth Castle Gardens; and a rose now growing in several family members’ gardens, which allegedly came from a cutting from the Gardens.
We particularly liked memories of a kindly Grandfather, who was a ‘delightful man who knew everyone’ and everything, always stopped for a chat with passers-by. We can contrast this with the recollections of former gardeners who only knew the same man as the Head Gardener and an exacting taskmaster. There is quite a contrast between these accounts, but probably most of us are different at work and with our family. And as Head gardener, he would have had a lot of responsibility – staff to be managed; crops to be produced for the table; propagating, planting and harvesting all to be done at the right season, and of course, the weather in Yorkshire to be contended with! His grandson said he had always wondered if his Grandad had been ’more of a man-manager or a gardening expert’ – we agreed he had to be a lot of both.
We also met the son of the College caretaker, who grew up in a flat over the coach house in the 1950s and 60s. He witnessed the new College buildings being erected and he was able to explain who lived in the other cottages, their jobs, families and characters. This is very useful to build up a better picture of the community that lived around the ‘Big House’ and Home Farm. It’s not just about the owners – hundreds of people lived at Wentworth Castle.
He also shared fascinating tales of boyhood activities at Wentworth Castle, many of which belong in the past! We have also been told by other previous childhood residents about:
- tobogganing down the road on Lowe Lane
- driving parents’ home from the pub while not yet a teenager,
- being sent to Barnsley to fetch Dad another tin of gold paint, alone and on foot, aged about ten.
Don’t try any of this today!
Janet Johnson, Research & Archives Volunteer
