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The Sunnycroft Connection

Local people have been telling ROBERT BULLARD about their memories and connections with one of Wellington’s most prized Victorian houses

Among all the beautiful Victorian houses along the Holyhead Road - or the ones that you can see behind the high hedges and tall trees - is one of Wellington’s most prized Victorian possession of all, Sunnycroft.

For those who do not know the house at 200 Holyhead Road, it is described as a late Victorian ‘gentleman’s villa’, and was typical of the houses that were built for wealthy business and professional people on the edge of towns and cities.

But what makes the house an amazing jewel for Wellington is that its owners kept it intact from its completion in 1899 - without alternations, DIY, or extensions – right until it was given to the National Trust in 1997. And of course they haven’t changed it either.

So, when you take a tour of the property it will be like stepping into Dr Who’s tardis – I have always wanted to do that! - and going back 100 years. You will find the most beautiful Victorian ladies’ dresses, in perfect condition still in the cupboards upstairs; the kitchen still full of brands that you have long since forgotten; and the medicine cupboard still equipped with curious looking Victorian pills and potions.

The original house was built in 1880 for Mr J G Wackrill, who was the founder of Shropshire Brewery. Then, in the early 1890s, it passed to someone else in the drinks trade, Mrs Jane Slaney, of Slaneys Vaults, the wine and spirit merchants. After she died in 1912 (her son Jack was living in Australia and was not interested in the house) it was sold to Jane’s brother in-law, John Lander – and it stayed with the Landers for the next 85 years.

But let’s go back to the Slaney family, where the first of four local people have been telling me of their memories. The housekeeper for Mrs Stanley was Amelia Jane Fox, and her grand daughter, Janet Lewis, is alive today. Janet is not sure how long her grandmother worked at Sunnycroft, but she knows that her grandmother had to give up the job – as was the custom in those days - when she got married in 1902.

But even after getting married Janet’s grandmother worked at the house occasionally, helping out at dinners and doing the flower arranging. Janet says her mother accompanied her own mother on these visits, waiting in the hall, where she would be given a drink.

Janet was nine when her grandmother died, and she does not remember either her mother or grandmother saying anything particular about Sunnycroft. “You never think of asking them at the time,” she says, regretfully.

Back then to the history of the property. John Lander was in his 50s when he bought Sunnycroft. He had been educated at Shrewsbury School, and Cambridge, and was a solicitor, with his own practice, Lander & Son, in Walker Street, Wellington. He was married twice and had two sons (who were also educated at Shrewsbury and Cambridge), one of whom, Offley, bought Sunnycroft after John died in 1943.

Someone who visited the house at this time, and still alive today, is Lesley Griffiths. Between the ages of 9 till 14 Lesley had two jobs as an errand boy, both of which took him to Sunnycroft. He delivered sausages, pork pies and sausage rolls to the house on Saturdays, for Espley’s, the pork butchers, on New Street, as well as calling in at the house in the evenings, to deliver the Express and Star for Chaplin’s newsagents, on Mill Bank.

“Going up that avenue of trees in the winter evenings, to deliver the paper, used to terrify me,” says Lesley. (It’s a 150yard walk down an avenue of tall sequoia trees, for those who do not know!) “There was never anybody about. The only time I ever saw anybody was one day when I saw two young girls on the lawn, dressed in white dresses.” The ladies may have been Offley’s daughters, Joan and Rachel, but they would have been around 30 at the time.

Despite all those years of delivering to the house twice a day, Lesley never went inside. But he didn’t have to use the tradesman’s entrance either, but was expected to leave the sausages on the front doorstep.

Lesley and his wife visited Sunnycroft again recently. From the outside at least, he thinks the house hasn’t changed – apart from two canons, which he is sure used to stand in the garden but are no longer there.

“Going back there brought a lump to my throat,” says Lesley. “I stood there for ages, staring at the steps, where I used to leave the sausages. It was very moving. After all those years it still brought a tear to my eye.”

Someone else who is still alive and who has connections with the family is Rev Richard Powell. He was the vicar at Wrockwardine between 1964-80, where Offley Lander used to go to church, and he took Offley’s funeral when he died in 1973.

Rev Powell also remembers Offley’s daughter Joan, but with some embarrassment. It turns out that Joan, who had been brought up in the Church of England, became a Roman Catholic. “She absconded,” laughs the Reverend. So Joan used to drive her father to the services at Wrockwardine, and come back later to collect him when the service was over.

“They grew all kinds of things at Sunnycroft, including arun lilies, which they used for decorating the church,” he remembers. “They also had poultry - and even pigs, I think.”

Joan Lander had been born in 1916. During the war she worked as a Red Cross nurse for a while, but she became ill and had to leave her job, after which she went into embroidery. Indeed, she became very proficient, moved to London and worked on Queen Elizabeth’s coronation dress.

When her mother died in 1964 Joan moved back to Sunnycroft (her sister Rachel had married) to look after her father, but after he died in 1973 Joan returned to her embroidery, teaching in the Gateway in Shrewsbury and setting up a needlework business, called Joan Lander designs. Those who visited the house at this time swear that Joan used Sunnycroft’s full-sized billiard table – after all there were no men in the house! - for laying out her patterns, materials and her work. It certainly should have been big enough!

Our last contributor - or until some other readers contact us - is Neil Ferris, who, when he came to live in Telford in the 1980s, had a temporary job as a dustman. His round included emptying the bins at Sunnycroft, where he remembers Joan Lander.

“She was a lovely lady,” says Neil. “She used to leave a cup of tea and a biscuit for the person taking the bins back to the road.“

The job gave Neil time to admire the wonderful cars in the garage, including the Lander’s famous Daimler that’s still there today, in the garage. Interestingly, this interest in cars became a hobby and then a job for Neil, who now works as a Classic Car consultant, researching the history of old cars and helping people secure parts for them.

Even at a young age Neil was able to put his interest to good use, once helping Joan Lander get new inner tubes for her car at a time when they were being phased out and hard to get hold of.

When Joan died in 1997 she left the house to the National Trust. It’s a great visit and as of this year they also have their own car park – although the council have not yet changed the road signs – so there is no excuse not to visit!

Sunnycroft, 200 Holyhead Road, Wellington, is open on Mondays and Sundays, 1-5pm. Entrance is £4.40, or free for National Trust members. Tel .01952 242884.


www.robertbullard.com

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