AS COUNTLESS Black Country men and women toiled long hours in the factories, foundries and pits, to return at the end of their shifts to their humble homes, they must have looked with envy at the large, luxurious houses of the ironmasters and factory owners, paid for with the sweat of the worker’s brow.
Around 100 years ago there would have been many comfortable villas here in the Black Country, where the bosses lived in lavish ease, away from the mean and meagre homes of the workers, but very few have survived to today. Many of those that have not been demolished have been converted to flats or offices but it is still possible to get a glimpse of how the other half lived in a perfectly preserved Victorian villa not far from the Black Country, at Sunnycroft, a gentleman’s residence owned and maintained by the National Trust in Wellington, near Telford.
The house was built in 1880 by John Wackrill, owner of the Shropshire Brewery. He lived there with his wife, five daughters and their domestic staff until his death in 1893.
The family moved away to Essex and Sunnycroft was bought a year later by a wealthy widow, Mary Jane Slaney. In 1899 she brought in the original builder and extended the house, adding a billiard room, large dining room, a large master bedroom and further bedrooms, and remodelled the entrance stairway, installing an impressive neo-Jacobean staircase.
She landscaped the grounds as well, planting the avenue of Wellingtonia along the main drive.
Mary Slaney died in 1910 and for two years the house was owned by her son Jack before he sold it to John Vernon Thomas Lander. The Lander family would own Sunnycroft for the next 85 years. JVT Lander was a local solicitor, county coroner and registrar, he had two sons; the eldest, Jack, followed his father into the legal profession, while second son Thomas Offley, became an engineer.
When JVT Lander died in 1942 it was Offley Lander who took over the house. He had founded the Sinclair Ironworks at Coalbrookdale, which was later renamed the Allied Iron Foundry. He retired in 1960 and following his wife’s death he was cared for by his daughter Joan until he died in 1973.
Embroidery Joan Lander was a graduate of the Royal School of Needlework and was one of 12 women to embroider the gold thread work on the Queen’s coronation gown in 1953. She lived at Sunnycroft until her death in 1997 and the house passed to the National Trust.
In all the time that the Landers lived at Sunnycroft few alterations were made and the house is largely unaltered since Mary Slaney’s time — even the original curtains and wallpaper still hang in some of the rooms. While other houses of similar size were demolished or redeveloped and had their ground given over to housing estates, Sunnycroft is all but intact and as it would have been in Edwardian days.
It stands on the Holyhead Road, Wellington, and is open to the public Friday to Monday, from early March to the end of October. Standard admission to the house and gardens is £6.30 for adults and £3.15 for children.
On Saturday, 25th September, Sunnycroft hosts it special Michaelmas Day, when much of the produce from the gardens and glasshouses is picked. The house re-opens 17-20th December, decorated for Christmas with the dining table, which seats 25, laid out for a festive feast.
For more information contact Sunnycroft, 200 Holyhead Road, Wellington, Telford, TF1 2DR, 01952 242884, or log on at www.nationaltrust.org.uk/sun nycroft.
