Page 72 - Hindsight Issue 26 April 2020

HeRItAge
Lamport Hall Preservation trust with northamptonshire Heritage Forum present the northamptonshire Heritage Forum
Annual History Day
Exploring Historical Aspects of Northamptonshire Country Houses Date: Saturday 10 October 2020 • Location: Lamport Hall and Gardens
An informative day looking at aspects of the architectural history, the development of gardens and landscapes, past owners and personalities, along with the uses during the second World War of northamptonshire’s historic country houses
the day will include tours of Lamport Hall and gardens Refreshments and lunch will also be provided
Full details about the Annual History Day will be sent to Forum members by early June 2020 for booking a place in the first instance
From 1 september 2020 the Annual History Day will be open to non-members of the Forum
SNIPPETS ABOUT LAMPORT HALL
Mr edward Moorhouse rented Lamport Hall from the Isham family for the winter hunting seasons from 1886 to 1898. His baby son, William, was baptised at All saints Church, Lamport, on 19 January 1888. In April 1915 young William was the first airman ever to be awarded the Victoria Cross and his name is inscribed on the War Memorial in the churchyard.
sir Charles Isham, 10th Baronet, was a lover of nature and ‘a true Victorian eccentric’. He devoted himself to his garden and in particular to the creation in 1847 of a large rockery. this garden feature seemed to be of considerable public interest as magazines of the times such as The Gardener’s Chronicle and Country Life, wrote about it in some detail: ‘an assemblage of small caves, crevices, and excavations, carpeted and encrusted with a vegetation suited to the purpose’. Readers were told that the astonishing part of the rockery design was ‘little figures of gnomes and fairies’, most of them only two to three inches high, that peopled the rocks and crevices. sir Charles had brought 21 terracotta gnomes back from a trip to germany and placed them as ornaments on his new rockery. this was the first time that the garden gnome had been seen in the gardens of england. only one of these original gnomes survives, found hidden in a crevice after the rockery had been cleared. ‘Lampy’ as he was called, was displayed at the Chelsea Flower show in 2013 and is now vey heavily insured.
Lt William Barnard Rhodes-Moorhouse VC RFC – A Northamptonshire Hero. enid Jarvis. spratton Local History society 2015
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