“MOVING HOUSE”

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19512, 10 June 1933, Page 11

“MOVING HOUSE”

HOMELESS GHOSTS. One of the most extraordinary house “removals” in the world has taken place in England. A complete country house has been taken 300 miles across country (states an English writer). Mr. John A. Dewar, the millionaire racehorse owner, was a bachelor when he inherited The Homestall, a 600-year-old mansion near East Grinstead, Sussex, from his famous uncle, the late Lord Dewar. Then he married, and he and his wife agreed that it must be enlarged. But to add modem architecture to its rambling gables would have been desecration. So they searched for an old mansion exactly similar in style to The Homeshell. At last Mr. and Mrs. Dewar found and purchased Dutton Hall—near Runcorn—3oo miles away—in Cheshire. It was built centuries ago by a powerful feudal family. Bit by bit, Dutton Hall was taken to pieces. Not a single brick or rafter was damaged. Even the polished stone flags in the floor were taken up, carefully indexed to that they could easily be put together again, and then packed away into cases. Motor-lorries arrived at The Homestall bringing pieces of Dutton Hall every week. Workmen were ready waiting, and, brick by brick, beam by beam, panel by panel, the work of reconstruction went on. Now there is hardly anything left of Dutton Hall, and the huge east wing of The Homestall is nearly finished.

But Dutton Hall had two ghosts, and they will be homeless unless they can find their way down to Sussex. One is a Roman soldier who, according to tradition, gallops each month across the paddock in front of the hall and raises his spear aloft. The other is a ghostly hand, the emblem of which is carved over the doorway.

Local tradition has it that the hand lurked somewhere in a haunted room which has now been invaded by the army of workmen and found to contain nothing but the dust of ages.