Lots happening in 2008....
At last our planning application for the renovation of the redundant wing of the house - formerly the Calf House, Hayloft
and woodstore, has been passed. On with the plans for restoration now.
We finally managed to get out hay - in September. At the beginning of September, we had 45 acres of meadows still not mown for hay due to the wet weather. But the short spell of settled weather in the middle of the month enabled us to
get most of it. What a relief!!
On 30 September we were visited by Denis Judd, Alison Uttley's biographer. He stayed the night and we had a wonderful evening discussing plans for the launch of his new book - The Alison Uttley Diaries which will come out in theS
Spring of next year.
Simon is on the Development Committee for Quad a brand new state of the art visual arts centre for Derby. On 28 September he hosted a Super Rams evening in the main auditorium packed with 250 people. On stage was a panel of former Rams superstars who took questions from the audience and superb archive film was shown to a very enthusiastic audience. And on 1st October the official opening party for Quad - a wonderful evening and a chance to see inside this amazing building. Currently the Quad is the only centre outside London to have a Mediatheque linked directly to the
BFI in London. It really is a showpiece for Derby.
On 5 October, members of the Dethick had a reunion - the first time for 600 years! We had originally planned to do everything here, but with such a large number of the family attending, they held a celebratory tea party in the Florence Nightingale Hall in Holloway and then visited Dethick. They came into the kitchen where we gave them a brief history of the house since Isabella Dethick married Thomas Babington c1410 and they visited the church which was decorated for the Harvest Festival service held earlier in the day.
On Sunday14 December we are holding the annual celebration of Alison Uttley's Birthday in our historic kitchen which will have been decorated for Christmas. It wil be the first time the celebration has been held here. Most of the 30 tickets available have already been sold, but we have 6 tickets left to offer as a special offer package with Bed and Breakfast. Anyone out there who is an Alison Uttley fan can have Bed and Breakfast for two nights with two free tickets (£10 each).
LATEST - because the event has proved so popular, we are holding an additional evening celebration on Monday
15th December.
Please phone or email for tickets