The house and its contents just remained as a memorial to the extravagance of its builder.
Sir John with his wife had moved into The Dower House.
It was an old building on the estate, very much easier to run than The Castle would have been.
The extravagant Sir Hector had in fact renovated it and made it comfortable for his mother when she was widowed.
It therefore contained a beautiful staircase, several finely painted ceilings in the bedrooms and some exquisite mantelpieces. Actually the rooms were too small for such magnificence.
At the same time, after Sir John’s death, Minerva found that it was very difficult to keep even the smaller house in proper repair.
She often thought that unless Tony married a rich woman, they would all have to move into one of the cottages in the village
