Country diary: An abandoned stately home where the curtains still twitch | Derek Niemann

Sandy, Bedfordshire: It's an odd agglomeration of dwellings bolted together, ranging in a series of diminishing steps to the servant quartersA thousand Downton Abbeys vanished from Britain in the 20th century, as the minor gentry found themselves living beyond their means. Many big houses brought low left no visible trace - a garage rests on the footprint of Girtford Manor, five minutes from my house, and I play with the thought of pumps serving petrol in the exact spot where servants once offered canapés. Our long-demolished 18th-century rectory had enough rooms to house both the minister and his whole congregation. A strictly functional 1970s building occupies a fraction of the space.Three miles up the road, passing motorists can glimpse the windowless wing of a mock Tudor mansion before a tall hedge swallows the view. Those on foot can slip through a gap, past a modest entrance lodge and a derelict stable block, with a rusted winch poised over the hayloft and a zigzag crack down one wall, through which it would be possible to feed a horseshoe. Continue reading...