Henry, Down The King's Head

Not, as you might suppose, a critical review of his mate’s misbehaviour at the local, instead another sad tale of cruel misfortune from Adam Smith’s keepering days

- Adam Smith

Last month you gained a bit more estate history from my time as a single-handed keeper, including some background on the de Brocas family. Their lands once stretched across a fair slice of north Hampshire but the family legacy was reduced to a memorial chapel in the local church, a moat and some red brick gateposts.

There was very little to see of what the great family once owned. The original house was long gone before a substantial mansion was built some time in the 18th century by the new owners of the estate – a house most of which burned down during WWII, not from enemy action, just faulty wiring. So only the Tudor servant’s wing with its seven bedrooms plus skivvies attics was left, along with a courtyard with workshops and stores. Enough, by most people’s standards, however, to provide a gent with a very fine residence of some distinction.

The only significant part of the original fortified house was the moat, around 30ft across and who knows how deep, with vertical sides, encircling the house – if that’s the right way to describe a roughly square posh ditch.

Three bridges crossed this water. One slatted and hand-railed wooden version – described in a previous article, where Henry came close to snuffing the life from the estate handyman – which served for suppliers, deliverers and servants while another smaller bridge guarded by a pair of stone greyhounds accessed the gardens and arboretum. The main bridge, leading to the front of the house, was a much larger affair, in keeping with its initial role of taking nobs and nobesses up the sweeping drive to the main door – slightly let down by the fact that the front door wasn’t there anymore, it was off to the right.

This bridge sat on two massive RSJs with a surface built from railway sleepers and which – in order to ensure smooth passage for all those visiting – were due for replacement.

Enter Henry.