Hello John,

    I received your E-mail regarding where the billet was and was surprised to find that it was at the old Lotus club. It was also a bit of a coincidence because I am an operations manager at the factory that occupies the site where the Lotus concern was. When your friends were billeted there I am told there was the shoe making factory and the rest was fields. I was speaking to one of the maintenance engineers who knew a bit about the history of the site and he told me that Lotus shoes became very successful after the war and built a new factory to the right of the club in 1947. The shoe trade declined in the late 60s and the factory was sold to GEC ltd who used if for the manufacture of electricity meters.  The factory changed hands again in 1993 when the business was taken over by ABB ..

    Now as luck would have it, the engineer I was talking to said he had a Photo of the old Lotus club before it was knocked down to make way for a car park in 1976.  I agreed to let me have it on loan so I have scanned it into the computer and attached it to this note.

    You can see the car park work going on in the fore ground, and a glimpse of the corner of the new factory that went up in 1947. Hope you and your colleagues will find this of interest.   I have not managed to get out and take any photos of the Clifford Arms etc yet as we are still in the depths of winter. It is not that it is cold its just miserable and windy.

 

I have done some investigations regarding the building that you referred to as the castle at Stone.

    The bad news is that it was demolished in 1954. The building was called Kibblestone hall and belonged to the Copeland family and it was most likely their portrait that you mentioned seeing hanging on the stairs. When they died, they left the Hall and the land to the scouting movement and although the hall was knocked down the land around it was and still is used by the scouting organizations from all over the world.

    I have attached three Photos, a bit boring from a pictorial point of view but the may be of interest to you and your friends.

        The first picture I have taken from the same view point as the last one I sent so you can see what it now looks like where your billet once was.

    The second photo is a view in the opposite direction showing where the Lotus factory once stood, as you will see this is now covered in houses.

    The third picture shows the new factory, built on the fields which were directly behind where your billet was in the old club, in fact I was standing on the site of the old club when I took the picture.  Hope you find these interesting.

Best regards

George

The three photos that I have attached to this note are of Stone.

Photo one is of Granville square in Stone looking down the high street from what was the post office.  The Crown and Anchor Pub can be seen just at the edge of the picture on the right hand side and is the subject of Photo two.

    The third Photo is of the market square which is mid-way down the high Street.

Best regards

George

Here are another 3 photos.

Photo one is a picture of the lodge, the same as the one you have on your web site. The second photo is of Shugbrough Hall the home of Lord Lichfield, I believe the hospital was within the grounds of the hall. The last one is of the crown Hotel in Stone, sorry if it looks a bit like a ghost town, I took the picture at 9:am on a Sunday morning everybody must have been still in bed or in church.

Regards

George

 

You may be interested in having a look at my web site, www.nosam45.freeserve.co.uk, where I have a link to some of my photos, if you click on Bonton images you will be able to see them.  One of them is of Essex bridge taken from almost the same spot that the photo on your web site was taken from, I also have another showing the bridge and river with a couple of beautiful Swans.

Best regards

George Mason