Country Images Magazine Derby Edition October 2016 | Page 21

directly from the negative onto a photosensitive card with a pre-printed postcard back. In country house terms these can vary today from £4 to around £10 if really decent specimens with attractive images of minor houses. The cheapest types are those printed by colour lithography. Some of the large companies like Valentines produced cards of acceptable quality, but some very coarsely printed specimens can be found (often printed in Germany), still languishing at 50p to £1, whereas a good one, like my Vannoe Series one of Eyam Hall, is well coloured and sharply printed. A famous local coarse colour-litho card is one of Staunton Harold from the east drive – one of the finest views in England, wrecked by coarse, dark printing – with salt rubbed in the wounds by being clumsily labelled on the obverse, ‘St. Aunton, Harold’. Heaven knows what St. Aunton thinks about it! Many are straightforward black and white prints, but again of varying quality, £2 to £3 really being enough to pay for one, whilst special events can double or treble the value: hunts are especially collected and there is a famous real photographic Derbyshire one of the Meynell meeting at Doveridge Hall, and a colour litho of the meet at Carnfield, of indifferent quality and much more affordable in consequence. I have a view of Egginton Hall when in use as an auxiliary hospital in the Great War, red cross flying and temporary buildings attached, really quite desirable, although only printed. One encounters novelty ones, too, like one of Breadsall Priory in winter, with lashings of snow and ice added by hand, published by Richard Keene Ltd. c 1910. Mine was sent from Etta, presumably working at the Priory, to the housekeeper at Ford House, Ogston, and includes somewhat poignant the message: ‘Mr. Piercy’s address is No. 7 Field Ambulance 3rd Division, British Expeditionary Force…I am sending him a parcel of socks and scarves this a.m. Sister says he is well, working v. hard and very sad.’ Another, postmarked 9am in summer 1907 tells Fred, working at a house in Staffordshire, that the sender (his sweetheart, one presumes, from the general tenor) to expect her on the train at 2.10 pm that afternoon. Try that today and, with the card probably taking at least a full working day to reach its destination, you have a recipe for an irretrievably dented relationship! 2. Barton Blount, a real photographic image of 1904. 3. Barton Blount, the reverse with typical duplex postmark, note that it cost me £6 fairly recently – top price, although I was kindly given a discount for quantity! 4.Errwood Hall, in the far north west of the county, in its heyday, a middling quality colour lithograph by a national firm. It is now just a pile of stones, but the card is by no means rare. 5. Eyam Hall, a top quality colour lithographic card in the ‘Vanhoe’ Series, with thumbnail postmark for 1909. Both the image and the printing are of excellent quality. Message (in immaculate copybook), ‘Dear Cousin Lily [Wagstsaff ] Just to tell you the Bazaar is not in Easter week after all…I and the Mrs. are going to Glossop…’ 6. Puckrup Hall, a Regency seat just by the M50 where it crosses the Severn north of Tewkesbury, with the hunt meeting – a really good quality real photographic card by a local man. A snip at £2 even in 1985! 7. Breadsall Priory with an added touch of winter! Published by Richard Keerne Ltd. c. 1910 and sent in 1914. 8. Egginton Hall as a Great war auxiliary hospital, published by the Everys themselves, House demolished 1955. A fairly rare but locally printed card. Cost 50p in 1975, now a tenner. 9. Edge Hill Tower, Duffield Bank, the entrance a cheaply printed card from just after the Great War – after the so-called ‘golden age’ of the postcard, showing the garden front. Published by E. Mills of Duffield Post Office, and quite rare. 10.Haddon Hall, the kitchen, c. 1910, printed card of rather ordinary quality produced for social history reasons by a scientific foundation. Ecclesbourne Valley Clocks When buying country house postcards, do not stand any lip from clever dick dealers either. I have many times picked up a colour-lithographic card, challenged a £4-50 price, only to be told ‘the house has been knocked down, it’s rare’. This is rubbish, because in the Edwardian period the place was probably thriving and the cards (especially lithos) probably quite common, like Errwood. Even real photographic ones of ‘lost’ houses are usually fairly common, as with Darley Abbey, Markeaton, Etwall and Egginton. That said, it is a relatively inexpensive field for collectors – country house cards have got to be absolutely exceptional to fetch more than £10, eg. Quarndon Hall after the fire - and all are potentially packed with interest and potential for research. The postcards as they appear in this story: 1. Alfreton Hall: a sepia real photograph on an undivided back card, c. 1900. It cost me 30p around 1980! Antique Clock Restoration & Repair Personal, qualified & experienced repair service Please contact us to arrange a visit to your home for a FREE evaluation and quotation 07772 411663 [email protected] Based just o