Fifty years ago today, on 6 August 1976, the Leicester Chronicle published an article about my parents and the rather enormous task they had just taken on.

The headline read:

“Five-Second Decision Put Elizabethan Hall Back in Business.”

A few weeks ago, I came across the original newspaper clipping by chance. I had never seen it before, and Mum and Dad hadn’t seen it since it was published either. Then I spotted the date. Almost exactly fifty years ago. What a coincidence to have found it now.

The headline was rather curious too. In 1976, Narborough Hall wasn’t a business. Nor, as far as we know, had it ever been one. But perhaps the journalist had been doing a little crystal-ball-gazing, because fifteen years later, in 1991, we did start a business here after all. That comes later in the story, though. First, there was the small matter of saving the house.

A five-second decision

When my parents looked at Narborough Hall, they saw there was “a great deal of work to be done”. That may have been something of an understatement! The building had stood empty for years. It had suffered decades of neglect and had narrowly escaped several threats of demolition. It was officially listed as “At Risk”.

Outside, parts of the building needed propping up. Windows had been boarded over. Inside, much of the woodwork was rotten, the roof leaked and the list of repairs seemed endless. There was damp, deathwatch beetle and woodworm. The ends of some of the floor beams had rotted away where they met the walls, leaving them without proper support. At one point, part of a floor gave way and a toilet fell through into the room below. Thankfully no one was sitting on it at the time!

Most people saw a lost cause. My parents saw possibility. Dad told the newspaper that they could see what a fabulous house it could be and that the “momentous decision” to take it on took only five seconds to make. Five seconds committed them to the next fifty years…

Not just a building project

It was perhaps an even more momentous decision because my sister was only two years old, I’d had my first birthday the week before we moved. This was not a restoration carried out from the comfortable distance of another family home. We moved into Narborough Hall with the work was going on all around us. 

The newspaper reported that nearly twenty skips of rubbish had been removed, amounting to roughly 150 tons. I learned to walk on rubble and apparently slept in every room in the house as our beds were moved around according to what work was going on at the time. 

There was only a makeshift kitchen and bathroom, no proper heating or lighting. We relied on a single inspection lamp. Apparently, the last person to bed switched it off at the mains and then tried to forget the village rumours about ghosts!

After six months of work, Mum and Dad were still hoping that they might have “at least some rooms fit to live in by Christmas”. The slight problem was that we were already living there!

To top it all, that year was the famously hot, dry summer of 1976. An existing crack in one of the main roof supports fractured alarmingly during the dry spell. Fifty years later, we’ve found ourselves experiencing another remarkably hot summer. Fortunately, the main roof support appears to be behaving itself this time. Touch wood!

A good, lasting job

One line from the article says a great deal about Dad and about the way my parents approached the whole project:

“What I’m trying to do is a good, lasting job rather than just patch it up.”

They did not have huge amounts of money to throw at the restoration. Dad carried out an extraordinary amount of the work himself, repairing and restoring whatever could be saved. He even replaced the timber belvedere (a later addition) by building a stone replacement, more in-keeping with the building’s original architecture and much more able to withstand wind and weather. He didn’t want to patch up what was there, only for it to need more work doing in a few years time, he wanted what he did to benefit generations to come. Slowly, the building began to come back to life. It started to feel like a real family home again.

Of course, with a house of this age, there is no point at which somebody lays down tools and declares the work permanently finished. Old buildings continue to need time, money, attention and care. Stone, timber, windows, plaster and roofs all carry on ageing, whether or not their owners would prefer them to take a year off.

But that was the point of doing a lasting job rather than patching it up. Dad told the journalist that, once the work was complete, Narborough Hall should sit safely in its remaining land for another hundred years. Fifty years later, it is still here. Mum and Dad are still here too.

The same two people, fifty years later

To mark the anniversary, we’ve photographed Mum and Dad outside the Hall again, holding the picture of their younger selves taken in the same spot in 1976. The Narborough Hall you see today is only still standing because of these two.

A five-second decision committed them to fifty years of dedication to this 425-year-old family home. It has taken an enormous amount of time, care, endurance and sheer bloody-mindedness to bring it back from the brink and fill it up with life.

Between them, Mum and Dad have done something truly remarkable, and we couldn’t be more proud of them. Over the centuries, this place has been home to so many families. Now it is home to ours.

When the Hall really did go “back in business”

Fifteen years after the newspaper article appeared, its slightly unlikely headline finally came true. In 1991, our family opened More Than Just a Gift at Narborough Hall. It is still a home, of course. Mum and Dad continue to live here, and the private house isn’t open to the public as a conventional historic attraction. But part of the ground floor is now home to our shop, where customers are warmly welcome to visit, browse and enjoy shopping in a building with a rather unusual story.

We think More Than Just a Gift is a pretty special shop. But it also has a special and very practical purpose: helping to fund the continual care that a building of this age requires. The business does not merely happen to occupy the Hall. It helps to keep the Hall alive. Even the smallest purchase made here has the power to contribute towards its future. A card, a small token or a gift for somebody you love helps support our independent family business and, through it, the ongoing care of the building it calls home. Our customers have now been part of this story for thirty-five years.

Little decisions with a lasting impact

There is something rather fitting about the work our shop does inside this old family home. People come here to make small decisions. A birthday card for a friend. A gift to celebrate a new arrival. Something to say thank you, congratulations, I love you, I remember or I’m thinking of you. None of those purchases may appear as momentous as deciding in five seconds to save a centuries-old house. But small decisions can have a lasting impact too.

Our shop exists to help people mark life’s special moments and everyday joys with gifts and cards that spread a little happiness. Things that can be touched, held, kept and treasured, and that might bring memories flooding back fifty years from now.

That newspaper cutting did exactly that for us. It brought back an enthusiastic young couple, an almost impossible task, two toddlers growing up in the middle of it all, and the beginning of fifty years spent caring for one extraordinary place.

Because life is built of time, care and endurance. Just like this house.

About Sophie

I’m Sophie, Wendy and Paul’s younger daughter. I grew up at Narborough Hall while they were bringing it back to life. Since 1997, I’ve been running More Than Just a Gift at Narborough Hall along with my husband Simon. Our daughter Dulcie, joined the business in 2020.

We’d love you to come and enjoy a browse around four fabulous rooms filled with a unique curated collection of beautiful gift and cards. We stock brands such as Jellycat, Serenity Vivid Home Fragrance, Joma Jewellery and so much more.

Find us only two miles from Fosse Park (J21 M1) just off the B4114.

Narborough Hall, Coventry Road, Narborough, Leicestershire, LE19 2GD. TEL: 0116 286 6885.

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Visiting Narborough Hall: Narborough Hall remains a private family home and is not open for historic-house tours. More Than Just a Gift occupies four large rooms on the ground floor and welcomes customers during normal shop opening hours. Monday to Saturday 9am-5.30pm, Sunday 10am - 5pm.