Red Walls
On October 9th 1969, Blandford Investment Company (John and Doreen Hanks) sold the land where Red Walls now stands (along with rights of way over the drive) to a Company called Flays of Ferndown Ltd (Director Leslie F Flay, Secretary Ethel M. Flay) for £1500
Description of the house from The Daily Mail 6th March 1967
By the time James and Esme came to live in Spetisbury, ‘WingCo’ as he was universally known, had retired from the Air Force and was teaching Science at a local girls’ school. However, he loved to entertain everyone with stories of his time flying Douglas DC-3 Dakota aircraft into Berlin during the airlift operations of 1948-49. James and Esme lived very happily at Red Walls for the next 34 years, until January 2003 when Esme died at the age of 84 years. James never really got over her death and died himself a couple of years later.
On November 16th 2006, Norman and Margaret Marshall bought Red Walls from James’s son Bruce Manning for £310,000
Plan annexed to conveyance 9th October 1969
The plan above shows the extent of the land which was sold and the drive over which the owner had rights of way. It also shows that cottages Nos.1 and 2 are now amalgamated to form Priory Cottage (No.1). The numbers on the other houses are wrong: No.2 should be No.3, No.3 should be No.4, and No.4 should be No.5. Other than that the diagram is fairly accurate. The three garages at the top of Jubilee Cottage’s garden can also be seen.
Flays then sold this land to Wing-Commander James Manning who built Red Walls on the site. Red Walls was the show house from the Ideal Home Exhibition in 1967. James and his wife Esme saw the house at the show, fell in love with it, bought it, and had it erected in Spetisbury. They were given a choice of mortar for the bricks, chose the red one and thus named the house Red Walls.
