WOMAN’S STRANGE ACT

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 February 1937, Page 11

WOMAN’S STRANGE ACT

£3OOO HOME DESERTED One afternoon early in 1920 Miss Florence Appleyard, wealthy Bach woman, walked out of “The Firs, A a stately house in 1 five-acre grounds, which she bought for £2,500 cash a year before, states Miles Henslow in the “Sunday Express.” She left the house fully furnished. Valuable paintings hung on the walls. A silver service was set ready for tea. But she has never returned. To-day a weather-beaten stone that was once the back doorstep.is all that remains of “The Firs” at Upper Weston, Bath. Carpets, silver, pictures, the very timbers of the house, have all been stolen by raiders oi’ sold to pay for the rates of the house. And this strange woman who moved around the city heavily veiled, the owner of three other properties which for years, have been left to the darkness and dust, has never been seen since. This is the broad outline of a reallife mystery that police, rating authorities and people of Bath have vainly tried to solve. It is one of the strangest true stories the West Country has ever known. To-day I walked over the bare patch where once “The Firs” had stood and heard first-hand accounts of the mystery from the people locally concerned. • Mr. Arthur Mortimer, builder, whose premises are directly opposite the site of the vanished house, told me: “Both my father and I knew Miss Appleyai;d by sight, but she never more than passed the time of day. “Since she disappeared, we have watched ‘The Firs’ vanish stick by stick until nothing is left. Portions of the house were still standing five years ago, though the roof had fallen in and windows were broken. A fine piano stood iu one room, but children danced on the keys and smashed the woodwork:

“One morning I came across a lorry and a large picture half fallen in a ditch. When I returned later, lorry and picture had gone. “Of course, our firm never touched anything. Other people were not so scrupulous. There are few poor families here who'have not some item— ■ either by sale or otherwise —from this once magnificent property. Police-Sergeant John March, uoyv retired, said: “I only came into contact with ‘The Firs’ when it was already on the road to ruin. “The children have made a playground of the place. Everything of any value had gone. There was nothing one could do; nobody to prosecute. Rates had accumulated so much that half-yearly sales of furniture had to be held.” MYSTERIOUS DISSAPEARANCE Miss Appleyard, central figure 'in this mystery, lived alone in Bath until 1918. She rarely went out of doors, had no servants, and was visited only by an elderly male secretary, who called at regular intervals. She first lived in Grosvenor Place, Bath, and another house in this road was also hers. Towards the end of 1918, her two sisters died, and Miss Appleyard arranged to buy “The Firs,” where they lived. She paid the whole of the purchase price—about £2.500 —to a Bath solicitor in coin and notes.

Late in 1919 she moved into “The Firs” and was seen walking around the grounds. ‘ She was seen in the garden with her secretary in 1920 —but from that day her whereabouts has remained an unsolved mystery. Arrears of rates on her property, both in Bath and Weston, compelled the authorities to nail notices on the doors and later enter the houses. At Grosvenor Place they found furniture covered with dust and cobwebs. In a garage at.the back was an old-fashioned car, almost unused. Raiders had stripped it of most of its liftings. At “The Firs” they found a magnificent piano in a tumble-down room that was open to the sky. Children and looters had so damaged the place that the last of the enforced sales had to be held iu the grounds. It has since been found Miss Appleyard owned a fourth property at Dartmouth, a rambling country home which was allowed to go derelict. Here, too, furniture vanished bit by bit. . Now the land on which “The Firs stood is being taken over by the authorities. At the Town Clerk’s office I was told: “The land has been derelict for a long while and the Board of Control propose to acquire the property as part of an estate to be taken over for a mental home. Application is being made to the Minister of Health to confirm an order for compulsory purchase.” Will the mysterious Miss Appleyard, who did not trouble to save her magnificent home, appear to claim the land?