AN author has put pen to paper in a bid to help Wentworth Woodhouse.
Catherine Bailey wrote the book Black Diamonds which tells the story of the stately home’s history – coining it ‘England’s forgotten palace’.
Now Catherine has come to the rescue of the home once again after it had been forced to close for much of the pandemic.
She has created the Black Diamonds Tour for the Wentworth Woodhouse Preservation Trust.
The tour will launch when the house reopens when Covid-19 restrictions ease.
It will take visitors on a journey into the house’s past, detailing life above and below stairs, and into rooms no tour has previously entered.
Jen Booth, the visitors operations manager at the trust, said: “Catherine is passionate about the house and telling its story and was very excited to be involved.
“Her script brings to life the tasks of the servants, from preparing feasts for the Earls’ house parties to the daily drudgery of carrying bath water along endless corridors.”
Catherine Bailey wrote Black Diamonds after visiting as a TV researcher in 1999, eight years before the trust that is now regenerating the house bought it for £7m.
The author came back to Wentworth Woodhouse pre-lockdown and walked through the rooms featured in her pages to create a pathway for the tour, which will run once a day from Wednesday to Sunday.
