Watnall Hall - the Norway connection

In July 1889, Captain Lancelot Rolleston of Watnall Hall and his wife Lady Maud set off on an adventurous trip to Norway. 

Capt. Rolleston

For Rolleston the purpose of the trip was to hunt (mostly deer and reindeer) and fish (salmon and trout). His friend and mentor John Chaworth Musters of neighbouring Annesley Hall in Nottinghamshire had a fishing and hunting lodge in Laerdal, central Norway and knew the country well. The salmon fishing in particular was very well regarded by the visiting English aristocracy who were known in Norway as the Salmon lords. Perhaps this is where the idea for the Rolleston’s trip came from although they did not visit the Chaworth Musters's particular lodge. 

John's son and heir Patrick was born in Norway and raised his family there before inheriting Annesley and his grandson James lived at the family lodge at Vaulen in Surnadal. In WW2 James helped organise the Norwegian resistance and the "Shetland Bus". This was a series of Norwegian fishing boats used to smuggle Norwegian resistance fighters to Scotland for training and back again for guerrilla operations against the Nazis. James's Norwegian upbringing and fluency in the language were vital for this role. The Norwegians made a great impact with the Scots while training in the Cairngorm Mountains near Aviemore. The locals erected a memorial at Glenmore to the brave Norwegians who had lived amongst them and who died fighting the Germans.

James Chaworth Musters (in hat) and Norwegian resistance fighters
and his less than flattering statue at Vaulen below

 

The "Salmon Lords" - Rolleston and Chaworth Musters were among the
many Englishmen who frequented the Norwegian rivers and 
brought valuable business to the Norwegians.

Joan Wyndham, a WAAF girl who was billeted at Watnall Hall and worked in the village's underground bunkers had encountered the Norwegian sailors before when posted in Inverness. She says of them... "Some of them have curious names like characters in a Norse Saga: Fir-tree-eater, Tie-eater, Chamber-pot-breaker and so on. On moonlit nights they sneak out from the Shetlands to the occupied Norwegian coast and lie in wait among the islands for the German ships to come past. Their boats have two torpedoes and a speed of thirty knots -tiny and frail, but they can out-manoeuvre bigger ships."

Read more about the Rolleston's trip at the main Tales From Watnall Hall website here... https://watnallhall.blogspot.com/2023/03/captain-rollestons-norway-diary-july.html

and more about the Annesley Hall Chaworth Musters family's Norwegian connections during WW2 here... https://watnallhall.blogspot.com/2021/11/great-war-fallen-sons-of-annesley-hall.html