Bolton Hall

Bolton Hall c1955
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My aunt and uncle, Lily and Fred Boardman, lived at Bolton Hall until about 1963. They had a clothes manufacturing business, called Ellen Efbee. The factory was on the ground floor and they lived in a lovely flat up the beautiful wooden staircase and behind big double doors on the first floor. Everywhere was lovely polished wood. Most of the hall looked Victorian, especially the pipework, but at the rear there was a door with a stone set in with a date from the fifteenth century engraved in the stone. One day a hole appeared in the grounds where the mine had collapsed and the council used the hole as the local tip for many years. My aunt was a wonderful cook, especially of different types of scones and breads covered in butter. My cousin married one of the workers and he and his wife lived in a caravan in the grounds near the paddock (which was used by a neighbour to graze his horse) until one day it burned down. They then moved into what had been the servants' quarters up a different staircase. Later they had two bungalows built in the grounds, one for them and one for a disabled person (a condition of the planning permission). It was a magical place to a child.