Manor house's transformation

Forget today's hi-tech baby monitors – in the 14th Century, nannies had their own childcare gadgets.

"When we bought Dunsley Hall there was a blow horn in the nursery with a pipe going to servants' quarters," says Terrie Beardsmore, who will be opening the hall in Kinver as a hotel next month.

"It was so the nannies would be able to help out with other tasks while listening out for when the baby started crying. We also have the original servants' bells still hanging on the wall, and they are in good working order.

"Because the building has hardly changed since it was built, Staffordshire County Council has classed it as one of the most important properties in the county – it still has the original timber framing and fireplaces. Original parts of the building, which date back to 1304, have now been turned into luxurious bedrooms with four-poster beds and antique furniture."

Terrie and Wilf Beardsmore from Kinver bought Dunsley Hall two years ago for £1.4 million and have spent £1million turning it into a hotel and restaurant. "When we looked around the property, it was like stepping into a time warp," says Wilf, aged 54.

"In the loft, there is a room where people had carved there names – there was even a J Beardsmore living here in 1921, and there are several names written in candlewax dating back to 1883. There is a well, which we have been told goes down below the River Stour and supplied clean water to the house. In the cellars, there were hundreds of bottles of wine dating back to the 1800s. We also know that hunts regularly went from the house."

From a history and archaeology survey carried out on the hall, Terrie and Wilf have discovered that it was owned from 1304 by Richard Throckmorton, who sold it to Richard De Dunsley. It was passed back to the Throckmorton family and in the last few hundred years was owned by the Ortons, the Foleys and the Marsh family. "Most of the time it was rented out to gentry," says Terrie, aged 49.

"When we bought Dunsley Hall it was owned by a company called Marsh and Baxters. Wilf and I have done property development before but going into the hotel business is new for both of us.

"Everyone thought we were mad when we told them our idea – Wilf left his job where he had been director of a security company for 23 years and I worked as an estate agent. We are from Kinver, and we both grew up in Dudley, so buying Dunsley Hall seemed like a dream come true.

"The family who owned the house were always very private and people who had lived in Kinver for years didn't know Dunsley Hall was here," says Terrie, whose son Simon has done most of the plumbing in the building.

The hotel, which has 11 ensuite bedrooms, a snug, conference room, two dining rooms, a drawing room and function rooms, will officially open on November 14.