Latchford Hall, a Neo-Gothic house, situated within the confines of an isolated wood in the small picturesque village of Bodsley and to the north of Delamere in Cheshire was designed by the flambuoyant architect, Samuel Claridge of London. The house was commissioned by a wealthy landowner called Squire Trevelyan and was completed in 1772; however, he died at the hands of a notorious masked highwayman named William (Billy) Turton, after being held up on a stagecoach on the outskirts of Frodsham.
From 1785, the house became the principal residence of the Latchford family who occupied it for over two hundred years; up until the time it was to be officially handed over to the National Trust in March 2004. Following a series of stock market crashes the Latchfords’ shipping interests took a serious downturn, resulting in them being forced to look somewhere else to support their extravagant lifestyle; namely the transport business. Regrettably, for the family, this soon proved to be yet another financial disaster, rapidly contributing to the demise of the Latchfords.
Tommy Shuttleworth’s arrival, shortly before Christmas 2003, at Latchford Hall acted as a catalyst. His brief, having been seconded by the National Trust, was to take a full inventory, together with his colleague, Gwendolyn Morgan-Jones. This was the day he experienced his first encounter with Alice Latchford.
Alice Latchford had been too young to die. Still in her twenties, she had been on her way across the Atlantic on the maiden voyage of the Titanic to marry her American sweetheart, when tragedy struck, resulting in her being one of the many who lost their lives that night. Although her death made little impact to what ultimately happened to the Latchfords, her spectre-like presence permeated and eroded the whole structure of their affluent existence and one they had all taken for granted, for ninety years. |
