Alston Hall of Fashions

The latest in Autumn fashion for women is modelled at Alston Hall in Holbeton, Devon and reporter Lawrie Quayle checks it out. This more formal attire was sign of women gaining ground in the workplace building on the 1970 Equal Pay Act which was about to come into force in December 1975. Twinsets and floaty blouses with long cuffs were for women at work and designed not to draw attention especially because the Protection from Harassment Act did not come in until 1997!

American fashion designer Roy Halston Frowick rose to international fame in the mid-seventies and his models were known as Halstonettes. Alston Hall was completed in 1906 and built for Mrs Allin who was married to the vicar of Holbeton. Alston became an Officers Training Centre during the First World War and was then bought by Major and Mrs Sayers in 1920. In 1960 the manor house became a country club and in 1995 it was used by the cast and crew for the film Sense and Sensibility who went on location shoots at nearby Efford House in Plympton and Mothercombe House on the Flete estate. The cast included Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant, Kate Winslet and Alan Rickman. The house returned to private ownership in 1996.