I first went to look at the Grange late one November afternoon. It was spookily shadowed in darkness from the trees and undergrowth. I unlocked the big, imposing front door and with a good shove it creakily opened up. Unbeknown to me when it opened, there stood on its back legs, looking at me face to face, was a wide eyed Alsatian dog!
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Glad to say he was friendly! The lady that had sold the house had gone to America and left a neighbour to look after him while they were waiting for the papers for him to follow. The stench of the house was just mind blowing, as you can well imagine. Least to say the kindly neighbour had not been clearing up after the poor dog.
The house was pretty much in complete darkness due to the most of the old ornate shutters being closed. Thinking about it, creepy was an understatement. Using my torch I worked my way around the house and, what was fantastic, as I opened each new door was that the rooms were still in their original state.
The original fireplaces, skirting, coving, picture rails where all still in place. One of the last rooms I went into was a five-sided, large windowed room with the most amazing painted and cast ceiling. One of the walls had a large fireplace, very ornate, made of what they call Skageoli. This was called poor man’s marble, 100 years ago, made from different colours of plaster like Plastercine rolled together to form a material of mixed colours and graining.
The walls were plastered in Plaster of Paris and all the internal and external corners were formed into ornate bead. A great shame was the water damage to the ceiling and this was very much the same throughout the house, but what fantastic potential.
I then went back outside and worked my way around the adjoining two-storey stable block, where the top floor was used as servant quarters, with the houses below. The building, from the outside, looked in fairly good condition but, once the door was opened, you could see that it had suffered for years from a leaking roof and would need to be stripped right back to the bare shell and the roof replaced.
I then moved across the yard to the next barn, also two storeys high and linked to some single storey barns. Again not looking too bad from the outside but not good within. Years of lack of maintenance had taken its toll but the potential again was mind blowing.
At the back of the Grange was a large garden, very over grown, but you could shut your eyes and just imagine what this must have been like in its heyday. A hot summer’s day, croquet on the lawn with afternoon tea served. Imagine…
The plan for Foxton Grange was to turn the main house into two large houses. The stable block into a single house, and the two-storey barn into a house with an enclosed courtyard. The large garden would contain a large detached house built in the style that would compliment the original well.
