Nevill Holt Hall

Nevill Holt Hall is a manor house situated in my home county of Leicestershire. Admittedly I hadn’t heard of it until recently and when I did some research I realised that it had a significant story behind it and also a small connection to my own family.

The hall was built centuries ago, before 1300, with it being named after the ‘Nevill’ family that owned it. It has of course been passed down and sold through the generations and although it might seem like any other listed building, the story behind it becomes more significant in the 20th Century. At the beginning of the century, in 1919, the building was developed into a school. It became a school for primary school age children, they were charged for their education and it became a ‘preparatory’ school; this essentially means that the main goal was to prepare the children for passing their entrance exams to continue private study. Although this all seems fairly mundane and innocent, the facts become much darker in the late 1990s.

In 1998, sex allegations were placed against the school, these involved a teacher and a deputy head at the school. The teacher – Edmund Clements – was charged and pleaded guilty to 33 sex offences against boys between the ages of 8 and 12. Here we can evidently see the dark turn that the history of the hall takes, clearly demonstrating the corruption of the school and the massive abuse of power that was exhorted over the children. The deputy head that was also involved in the sex abuse scandal at the school was not able to be properly charged. When the police had arrived at the school to make the arrests, the deputy head escaped and hung himself in a tree; clearly an indication of his guilt. A teacher had gone to fetch him for the police which is when he had ultimately escaped and managed to kill himself to avoid any charges made against him. The hall is a historical building that holds a significant amount of beauty, it appears totally unassuming but it evidently has dark aspects in its past. The personal aspect of the building is not – thankfully – anything to do with the sex abuse scandals but it is involved in the current ownership of the hall.

After doing some further research I discovered that the hall is now owned by David Ross of ‘The Ross Group’ which was a food retail company that was established in Grimsby. This is where the personally connection comes into play, as my dad and his side of the family are from Grimsby – with most of them still living there. I have spent summer and Christmases there as well and have a personal affinity to the town. Although this might seem nothing more than a coincidence, that the owner of a company in Grimsby now lives in a large hall in Leicestershire, there is in fact a more important part of this account of the Nevill Holt Hall. As David Ross currently owns the residence he has decide to fly a flag at his property. The flag has a green background with a black star, this flag was flown on the trawler ships in Grimsby that were part of The Ross Group. Although this might seem somewhat insignificant, David Ross owns the company and it is essentially his flag. However, I think the fact that he is flying this flag at his residence is extremely rude and condescending.

The reasoning behind this has to do with the decline of the fishing or trawler industry in Grimsby. The fish industry ended up in decline significantly through the 1970s and into the 1980s and this is what is significant to this story. The Ross Group had been an essential part of Grimsby’s fishing industry. It established it as a serious business for the town and helped it to prosper, although the fishing industry would have declined anyway as a result of globalisation, the way the Ross Group dealt with this change is important. As a result of the decline in the fishing industry in the UK, the trawlers were ultimately decommissioned. When this occurred the government gave the trawler companies are large pay out, however, there was a lot of controversy around this. Trawler men were considered casual workers and so they were given no money from this government grant, it all went into the companies that would most likely – as the Ross Group did – continue to prosper. However, these men were given nothing, they had lost their jobs and needed to find new work in a town that had essentially only offered them working in the fishing industry and needed to suddenly find new employment opportunities for these men.

This is why I think that the fact that David Ross has this flag flying at his large stately home is extremely condescending. The Ross Group did little to help these men who had depended on them for work and their livelihoods. The fact that he is flying this flag as if he supports the trawler men or that he has some sort of connection to them is patronising to say the least. I think as well, it just goes to show the way that buildings hold so much history and that they have significant stories attached to them which you might not consider at first glance.