Days Out With The Dead | Knole House, Sevenoaks

Clare McMurtrie, 2015

Clare McMurtrie, 2015

Clare McMurtrie, 2015

Clare McMurtrie, 2015

Clare McMurtrie, 2015

A couple of weeks ago we went on a day trip to explore Knole House, some parts of which date back to the 15th century. Knole is set within 1,000 acres of stunning parkland - Knole Park. The effect is that of a national park in the deepest countryside, not the grounds of a house just miles outside of London. 

Despite being battered by strong winds and cold weather, Knole proved a winner. My personal highlight was the perfectly preserved bedroom that was designed and fitted out for a visit by King James I. He never stayed in it! This place is magical and transports you to the time of Wolf Hall and Henry VIII - a truly memorable day out with the dead!

Days Out With The Dead | Eltham Palace, London

Clare McMurtrie, 2015

Clare McMurtrie, 2015

Clare McMurtrie, 2015

Clare McMurtrie, 2015

Clare McMurtrie, 2015

Clare McMurtrie, 2015

Madness and Death in Edwardian England

Black sheep and family secrets are usually stumbled across unexpectedly in family history research. At least that's how it happened in my case. I have discovered a few intriguing secrets along the way and I'm sure everyone has there skeletons in the closet as it were. However, these stories are also often the hardest to tell. My story started with a discovery 16 months ago. Doing a series of random online searches for records of my paternal great-great grandmother Ada Radcliffe, I came across her probate record which unleashed a long-kept secret. Far from revealing that she had left a fortune after her death, the record claimed that she had died in the City of London-lunatic-asylum. Further digging at the London Metropolitan Archives confirmed that she had been an inmate at the London Hospital in Stone, Kent, and died of 'Chronic melancholia' and 'Pulmonary tuberculosis' there in 1906. She died just a couple of months after her husband left to make a new life for himself in Canada (and then New Zealand), leaving two sons and a daughter behind. The death was hushed up and family were told that she had been ill and died in hospital. This was stretching the truth. This is one of the saddest and heart-breaking life stories that I have come across and one that will stay with me for a very long time. 

Thank you for reading.

The Suffolk Connection: A Family History Holiday

Through an odd turn of events I ended up staying in the village where my 5th great grand aunt Mary Freeman is buried. We uncovered her memorial stone under the altar at the village church, which describes her unusually as having died after 'a life of purity, piety and benevolence, and after having borne a long and painfull illnefs with truely Christian resignation and fortitude'. She had a brother John and sister Sarah and, confusingly, her parents were also John and Mary Freeman.

The link to my paternal grandparents is through Mary's sister Sarah, who married Edmund Lincoln, governor of the South Caribbean and St Vincent 1783-87. The mystery continues!