Four Centuries of Christmas at South Ormsby Estate

Sir Drayner Massingberd aligned himself with the Parliamentarian cause and fought with Cromwell’s forces at the Battle of Winceby near Horncastle in October 1643. As a captain in Lord Willoughby of Parnham’s cavalry regiment and a senior figure in a Parliamentarian county, Sir Drayner may well have celebrated South Ormsby Hall’s earliest Christmases in a sensibly sober fashion. However, the Restoration of Charles II in 1660 saw a full-blooded return to Christmas jollity, and Sir Drayner is known to have thrived under the new regime. Christmases at South Ormsby Hall in the 1660s may have been far happier affairs.

Our notion of a traditional Christmas owes much to the Victorians. Christmas Day became a UK bank holiday in 1834, and Boxing Day followed suit in 1871. Victoria herself was an enthusiast for ornamented Christmas trees in a family setting and helped make them fashionable. Charles Dickens stamped his own vision of hearth, home and compassion on the season in his evergreen novel, ‘A Christmas Carol’, coining the phrases ‘Merry Christmas’ and ‘bah! Humbug!’, and the name ‘Scrooge’ as a synonym for ‘miser’.

One of South Ormsby Hall’s most charismatic residents, Mary Jane Massingberd, lived through a great deal of history. Born Marie Jeanne Rapigeon near Versailles in 1764, her father served Louis XV and may have experienced the profligate opulence of the Bourbon court, not least at Christmas when vast sums were spent on gifts of jewellery. Marie Jeanne left France for England after the death of Louis XV and a few years before the Revolution.  She married Charles Burrell in 1788 and inherited South Ormsby Estate on his death in 1835. Known locally as ‘Old Madame Massingberd’, she was respected as a shrewd steward of the estate up to her death at the age of 97 in 1861. Whether she adopted Victoria and Albert’s fashionable ideas for Christmas is unknown, but she certainly didn’t bring the wasteful luxury of Versailles to Lincolnshire.

Up to the mid-twentieth century, the Victorian model of a perfect Christmas was only an option for the better off. Such features as turkey and Christmas trees didn’t become common until the 1960s, working class children might receive fruit or sweets as gifts, and post was still delivered on Christmas Day until 1961.

Cecile Stevenson recalled the gifts she received during wartime in a rural Lincolnshire community: “Birthdays usually brought a card and a ten-shilling note to save until after the war when there might be something to spend it on. Christmas most often brought a book, if one could be found in those days of shortages of everything, including paper.”

She also recounted a poignant gift from Italian prisoners-of-war, working Lincolnshire farms far from their own homes: “At Christmas….a beautiful little basket woven out of willow arrived via the aunties with a verbal message from the prisoners that it was ‘for the little girl who always waves to us when she goes past.’”

At South Ormsby Hall, generosity was a festive tradition. Kath Brown recalled of her time in service there in the late 1930s, “I met [my husband] Bert at our Christmas Party at the Hall, which Mrs Massingberd-Mundy, the lady, used to give us every year.” This tradition persisted, as David Brown recalled: “In 2005, mum was contacted by Squire Adrian at South Ormsby Hall, who’d been a little boy when she worked there. He invited her to a Christmas lunch that he and his partner, Sara Perceval, were holding for estate workers, past and present.”

Jacqui Rhodes also experienced this traditional treat: “I met Kath Brown when the Squire and Miss Perceval began to organise Christmas parties for old staff-members in their seventies and eighties. The Squire was a true gent and very loyal to current and former staff.” Jacqui maintains her own Christmas tradition by laying a bouquet every December on the resting place of the Squire, Adrian Massingberd-Mundy.

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* Oliver Cromwell by Samuel Cooper, 1656 – Public Domain via Wikipedia

* Victorian Christmas by Illustrated London News, 1858 – Public Domain via Wikipedia