{"id":445,"date":"2008-03-05T21:21:12","date_gmt":"2008-03-05T20:21:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hhfs.org.uk\/hhfs\/?p=445"},"modified":"2013-05-16T21:24:21","modified_gmt":"2013-05-16T20:24:21","slug":"news-letter-5th-march-2008","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hhfs.org.uk\/hhfs\/?p=445","title":{"rendered":"Newsletter &#8211; March 2008"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Joan Ryder opened the Society\u2019s 4<sup>th<\/sup> March meeting by reminding everyone of the April outing and the forthcoming ramble.\u00a0 She then introduced Mike Miles who was to talk on <em>Graham Baron Ash \u2013 his life and the restoration of Packwood House<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Mike began his fascinating talk by explaining how Baron\u2019s grandfather had started the family business and how his father, Alfred, had made a fortune in galvanising.\u00a0 Baron persuaded his father to buy Packwood at auction in 1904 and for \u00a34500 he acquired the house and 103 acres.\u00a0 In 1914 Baron joined the Red Cross and in 1917 the RFC.\u00a0 Alfred Ash died in 1925 and Baron then set about removing Packwood\u2019s Georgian and Victorian alterations: he added the long gallery and transformed a barn into a magnificent Tudor hall, using materials rescued from other houses.\u00a0 Mike illustrated his talk with photographs, including the gardens and Queen Mary\u2019s visit of 1927.\u00a0 Baron\u2019s year as High Sheriff of Warwickshire in 1938 was to be his high spot: in 1939 he joined the RAF and in 1940 the gardens were turned over to growing vegetables.\u00a0 He gave the house to the National Trust in 1941.\u00a0 Meanwhile, Baron had moved to East Anglia, where he continued to make substantial donations to local organisations.\u00a0 He never married and died in 1980, being buried in the churchyard adjacent to Packwood.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Joan Ryder opened the Society\u2019s 4th March meeting by reminding everyone of the April outing and the forthcoming ramble.\u00a0 She then introduced Mike Miles who was to talk on Graham Baron Ash \u2013 his life and the restoration of Packwood House. Mike began his fascinating talk by explaining how Baron\u2019s grandfather had started the family [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-letters"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hhfs.org.uk\/hhfs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hhfs.org.uk\/hhfs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hhfs.org.uk\/hhfs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hhfs.org.uk\/hhfs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hhfs.org.uk\/hhfs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hhfs.org.uk\/hhfs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hhfs.org.uk\/hhfs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hhfs.org.uk\/hhfs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hhfs.org.uk\/hhfs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}