Joan was watching a repeat of  “Escape to the Country” on BBC TV and shouted for me to come and look at the Leech House, by Bedale Beck, in Bedale, North Yorkshire.  I used to play in the the garden containing this turreted brick building when visiting my Aunt Alice and Uncle Teddy in the 1950’s.  It was like a miniature castle to me and I was later told about the leeches.  It is the only surviving Leech House in the UK.

Here is Alistair Appleton, a presenter on Escape to the Country, explaining how 200 years ago the small building was full of leeches.  These were kept alive with fresh water from the Beck and put into jars by the apothocary, who delivered them to doctors when the leeches were needed for “blood letting” on a patient.

Park House, Bedale (in the background of the above picture) is next to the railway level crossing of the road connecting Bedale and Aiskew and is now offices.  The garden stretching down to the Beck is now publicly owned and a tourist attraction because of the Leech House.  The railway line and the nearby station are now part of the Wensleydale Railway, which re-opened the Bedale Station in 2004.

In the 1950’s, a raised siding came from the railway station almost to the house and lorries could back in underneath the railway trucks to be loaded with coal being dropped through the bottoms of  the trucks, etc.

My mother, Brenda Mace, was born in the family pub, the Oddfellows Arms (now The Three Coopers), on Emgate, in 1909.   Park House was the local Police Station of the North Riding Police and when it was no longer required, in the 1920’s, my grandfather Thomas Mace bought it.   My grandparents moved out of the pub with their younger children, leaving one of his elder sons, John and his family, at the pub.

I have seen the Leech House on the television before, when Janet Street Porter did a programme 20 years ago about the book Yorkshire: The North Riding by Pevsner, the famous writer on architecture.  She showed Castle Howard, Whitby Abbey and then, suddenly, it was my mother’s garden and the Leech House.

This building with turrets reminds me of the Mace family’s relationship with castles and fortifications and in particular artisan and artistic ancestors.

Conway Mace, born in Lisburn, near Belfast in Ireland, in 1669  was the son of the Rector of Lisburn Cathedral, who was born in Cambridge, and a local Irish mother.  He was initially a goldsmith in Dublin before starting, in 1694, a long career as an army officer.  He served under Marlborough and then in Menorca before being in the 1727 siege of Gibraltar.  He ended his service at Plymouth Citadel, where he died in 1733.

Here is an engraving produced by Sandford Mace in 1737 of the Citadel of Plymouth, which he presented to Charles Churchill the Governor of Plymouth.  Sandford, along with his brother James, took leave from the Royal Artillery to produce the map.  The names listed on the map include General Borgard, commander of the Royal Artillery, and Colonel Adam Williamson, Deputy Governor of the Tower of London, who served with Conway Mace in 1707-8.

Sandford Mace then joined General Ogglethorpe’s new Regiment as a junior officer, when it was formed in 1738, and was in charge of cannon in Florida when a Spanish Fortress was taken in 1740.  Sandford drew the Fort and also a plan of the positions of different combatants, including local Indians.  He died in Georgia in 1745.

James Mace returned to the Royal Artillery and rose to the rank of Captain.  When serving at Gibraltar in 1751 he produced an engraving of Gibraltar.

James, as a boy aged 11, used to visit the Tower of London and Deputy Governor Adam Williamson recorded that James drew the portrait of John Plunket, who was imprisoned in the tower for Treason.

In 1756 James was promoted to Major whilst in Gibraltar to be head of the fleet charged with defending Menorca against the French.  Unfortunately (or fortunately for him) before he got there the French had captured the island.  General Clive, in Calcutta, then requested expert assistance to build fortifications for if the French attached Calcutta and James was dispatched.  He was delayed in Bombay, involved in the building of a new harbour, where he died in 1765.

A similar view was painted in the 1780’s by John Mace, who may have been the son of James.