OUTDOOR STAFF AT PENDRELL HALL
Pendrell Hall employed a large staff in those days. There was my father who was the chauffeur, as well as doing odd jobs and looking after the electric generator. The stockman was Henry Roberts. Smith, the head gardener, lived in the lodge at the
entrance to the drive. He had at least three or four assistant gardeners. Mr Worskett was the groom, when they had the horses. He used to go into Codsall every day in the luggage cart to pick up the fish from the train.
The fish arrived in a soft wicker bag and he would also pick up the papers. Mr Gaskell always had the Liverpool Post, as I think he was on the Board of that paper. Later on when the horse was pensioned off Mr Worskett walked to Codsall every day. It was
a good walk there and back. At Harvest Festival time he always made a sort of garland.
He sat in his cellar and made long fringes of straw. They were used to decorate the
Chapel at Codsall. Nobody else ever made them like him. On the ends of the pews there were little metal boxes and a hinged frame was fitted into these to make an arch and then they were decorated with flowers and the fringes of straw.
INDOOR SERVANTS
Indoors at Pendrell Hall they also needed several staff. They had a cook, a lady's maid, a
parlour maid, a chief house-maid, an under house-maid, a scullery maid, a nanny and a governess when Roger Gaskell was older. They all lived in the Hall, many of them in the attics. I remember at Christmas in 1918 and 1919 all the estate staff, with their wives and families, went to the Servants Hall for their Christmas Dinner.
They didn't have an ice-house at Pendrell, instead they had a lead-lined cabinet or ice box. The ice was put into the smaller top compartment and the food was stored in the cold cupboard underneath. In the summer it was my father's job to fetch the ice from the abattoir in Wolverhampton, possibly once a week. After the war Mr Gaskell provided my
father with his own transport, a motor-bike and side-car and then we used to fetch the ice in this. Sometimes I would come back sitting on top of the sack which covered the block of ice.
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