To the manor born: the splendid, if bohemian, home later downplayed by the brothers as an ‘old farm’
In 1956, the Corbyn family moved into Yew Tree Manor, a large property near Stafford in Shropshire
The Corbyns’ new home was even more splendid than the last one had been. The 17thcentury property had originally been part of the estate of the Duke of Sutherland, whose peerage was created by William IV in 1833 and whose country seat was Lilleshall Hall, now run by Sport England as a national sports centre.
It had five bedrooms upstairs and another two downstairs, which were converted into living rooms by the Corbyns. Outside there were gardens, lawns and a paddock. As she did in all her homes, Naomi Corbyn [Jeremy’s mother] planted a vegetable patch, where she grew food for the family.
The house was set back from what was then a busy main road but has since become a sleepy country lane thanks to the construction of a relief road.
All the Corbyns sought to play down the magnificence of the home the family would live in for more than two decades.
Piers Corbyn [Jeremy’s older brother] has claimed that their father renamed it Yew Tree House to make it sound more modest, although David [another brother] remembers it being his mother’s decision, saying she found “manor” inappropriate, although that was the name on the deeds.
“We weren’t to have delusions of grandeur,” David says. “It was just a home. It was quite a big house [but] it wasn’t that unusual in those days. It’s not in London.
“There were farm houses around us that were much better.”
Jeremy Corbyn also attempted to downplay the magnificence of the home he spent his formative years in, describing it as an “old farm”.
“It was far too big, but we had a whale of a time,” Piers added.
Friends would later describe the Corbyns’ as a “chaotic, bohemian household”, with little parental interference.
As well as the vast playing space outside his front door, Corbyn was free to roam the local laneways. He enjoyed fishing in a nearby river and visiting local farms, sometimes helping out in the fields.
Of the four boys, the other brothers say, Corbyn was the least interested in his parents’ passions of science and engineering, although he did enjoy helping his father out with his car.
While Piers, in particular, pestered their father with constant questions about the way things worked, Jeremy was content to curl up with a book.
A favourite game of both Piers and Jeremy was bicycle polo, which they would play on their lawn with other children from the village, chasing after a ball with hockey sticks while their father and elder brother David tinkered away on the car in the outbuilding they had converted into a workshop.
David says that with plenty of space to play in, the four children enjoyed the outdoor life, getting into lots of “active scraps”. The boys gave each other silly nicknames: Jeremy’s was “Jelly”, while Andrew was “Dumbo”.
“We were known as the Corbyn boys,” Piers has said. “We would all dress the same but in colour-coordinated knitted jumpers. [David]’s was green, Andrew’s was red, I was blue and Jeremy wore yellow.
“They couldn’t be passed down because they were the wrong colour.”
One of the local children who came to Yew Tree Manor to play, David Mann, has fond memories of the Corbyns.
He confirms that, however ordinary the boys believed their home to be, to other people it was an impressive sight.
“It seemed huge … with big reception rooms and a large fireplace.”
Mann, who grew up in a bungalow half a mile from the Corbyns’ home, has said: “Jeremy’s mum was the first woman our family knew who had been to university.
“The house was a bit chaotic and very bohemian. There were books everywhere. Jeremy was very mechanical. We built wooden gokarts, which we pushed from behind, and set up a race track in the garden.”
Another local boy says his main memory of Yew Tree Manor was of “delivering the milk to them”, adding that locally the Corbyns were thought of as some of the “affluent ones”.
‘We weren’t to have delusions of grandeur. It was quite a big house but it wasn’t that unusual’