PARROX HALL NEWS & FEATURES

Whether it's a teddy bear's picnic in the garden or "baggin's" in the yard, a 'brew' at Parrox has always been something special and the Hall has recently begun to welcome visitors for afternoon tea on Sundays. Guests are treated to a proper, old-fashioned English tea with sandwiches, cakes and scones. A number of specialist tea 'tastings' are being planned for the near future and details will follow on this site shortly. Tea is served at Parrox Hall every fortnight on Sunday afternoons. For more information or to book a table, please email info@parroxhall.co.uk or call 01253 812 209 or 01253 810 749.

The picture shows Miss Margaret Elletson and her teddy bears preparing for a picnic at Parrox in the early part of the last century.

The tennis court at Parrox Hall has been restored and is now open for hire. “The court was used regularly by many local people in the past,” says Harold Elletson of Parrox Hall. “It had got very run down and it’s been a lot of work to clean it up. It’s a good playable surface now and I’m delighted that people are using it again.” Hiring the court for an hour costs £12 and the price includes refreshments. Revenue goes towards restoration and conservation projects by the Parrox Hall Preservation Trust. For more information, please email info@parroxhall.co.uk or call 01253 812 209 or 01253 810 749.

Among the many old books in the library at Parrox Hall is a little, leather-bound volume entitled ‘Receipts and Remedies.’ Written in a number of different hands and dating from the seventeenth century, it contains both recipes for the kitchen at Parrox and numerous remedies, some of them more than a little alarming, for a variety of illnesses. The remedies in the book, including one for “oyle of whelps”, which involved boiling young whelps (puppies) and was, apparently, “excellent at the first to inject into a fresh gun-shot,” have been attributed to a former Squire, Dr William Fyffe.
William Fyffe, Honorary Physician to King Charles II for the County of Lancashire, was a man of many parts. Medical practitioner, politician, holder of such public offices as high constable and justice of the peace; he was well known throughout the county. Blunt, outspoken and irascible, he was not a man to be trifled with. In 1648 Fyffe married Ellen Butler of Parrox Hall, heiress to her father Henry Butler. Their daughter Katherine married John Elletson in 1690 and their descendants still hold the house and estate, part of an unbroken line stretching back over twenty-six generations to the original lord of the manor, Geoffrey the Crossbowman, who was installed by Prince John in 1189.
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