Do you remember The Ghosts of Motley Hall on TV in the 1970s? It was filmed at the fictional Motley Hall – home to the fictional Uproar family.
In reality this is Borwick Hall which I stumbled across recently on a trip up the Lancaster canal in north Lancashire. This impressive building dating back to the 14th century was in a perilous state of repair at the turn of the 20th century.
If it hadn’t been for a particularly influential and colourful character called John Alexander Fuller Maitland it would probably not have survived – and neither would much English music of the 16th and 17th centuries!
Borwick Hall was leased to music critic and scholar Fuller Maitland on the specific condition that he restore the building – which then became his home until his death in 1936.
In 1911 he gave up his rather controversial career as a music journalist and critic to focus on writing books including his autobiography, A Door-Keeper of Music (1929), in which he admitted that he had been wrong in earlier years to dismiss Sullivan’s comic operas as ‘ephemeral’. He also softened (slightly) his aversion to ‘modern’ and ‘foreign composers finally recognising the importance of the likes of Richard Strauss and Debussy.
Born in 1856 at 90 Portland Place in London, Fuller Maitland was to have quite an impact on the British scene from the 1880s to the 1920s. He not only encouraged the rediscovery of Henry Purcell’s music and English virginal music, but was also a passionate advocate of an ‘English Musical Renaissance’. He was a a particular fan of Charles Villiers Stanford and Hubert Parry, yet pointedly dismissive of the likes of Arthur Sullivan, Edward Elgar and ‘Fritz’ Delius.
Fuller Maitland wrote as a critic for the Pall Mall Gazette, The Guardian and The Times and was appointed editor of the second edition of Grove’s Dictionary – some of his articles still survive today in revised form in the 2010 online version.
He published an edition of the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book and edited several of Purcell’s works for the Purcell Society. He also edited the English County Songs collection in 1893 and was part of the original Folk Song Society committee.
Borwick Hall is now used as a residential outdoor education and conference centre by Lancashire County Council. Sadly, no blue plaques to his hame yet exist either at here or at 90 Elizabeth Place – perhaps an opportunity for BMS to raise the profile of this particular ghost with the relevant authorities?
Written by Nicholas Keyworth