Tower power!

WHEN Melissa Westwood was eight years old she visited Hoghton Tower with her family. Now 37, Melissa can remember little about the visit but a few years ago she came across a postcard of the 16th century manor house she'd stuck in a scrapbook to mark the occasion.

"My mum can remember all about it," said Melissa. "In fact, she remembers coming here when she was a child."

For many families like Melissa's, Hoghton Tower, one of the North's foremost stately homes, is indelibly bound up with history and memory.

And, in her new job as the tower's events manager, Melissa is encouraging hundreds of people to access that history and feel a part of Hoghton's heritage in a series of guided tours and prestigious events that are in keeping with the tower's grandiose setting.

From her wood-panelled office, where Melissa plans functions ranging from Scouts' treasure hunts to weddings and corporate events to farmers' markets, she can look out across neatly-trimmed rose gardens and sunny courtyards, surrounded by Tudor towers and mullioned windows. She said: "It's overwhelming as I turn in the drive and see the tower approaching. It's spine-tingling.

"I have to pinch myself every single morning when I come to work because this place is a part of history."

Melissa arrived at Hoghton 11 months ago to take up the newly-created post of events manager.

Before that she worked as conference sales manager at Hull University -- a job, she says, that could not have been more different.

"There, it was volume of business you were looking at," she explained.

"At Christmas you focused on bringing in company dinner dances, when you could have 1,000 people all celebrating Christmas at the same time in a number of different function suites.

"This is quite different. The events at Hoghton have to be appropriate to the setting and in keeping with the house.

"Here, we would host upmarket, exclusive events at Christmas.

"This year we're looking at staging a Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly event, where there'll be carol singing and poetry reading round the fire. We're bringing in a group of a cappella singers and we'll serve up mince pies and mulled wine."

Guests at Hoghton Tower are, as Melissa points out, following in the footsteps of some remarkable visitors, including King James I and Shakespeare.

She said: "The land has been the ancestral seat of the de Hoghton family since the days of William the Conqueror.

"Over the years many distinguished guests have stayed here.

"About 400 years ago William Shakespeare was here and is thought to have tutored the family. Then, in 1617, King James was returning from Scotland when he stayed here and enjoyed the loin of beef he was eating so much he knighted it Sir Loin, from which the cut gets its name."

Other Royal visitors to Hoghton have included George V and Prince Philip.

To this day the tower is the home of the de Hoghton family, but it is also a registered charity and visitors can take pride in the idea that, in visiting the tower, they are helping preserve it for future generations.

However, the prestigious events Melissa now helps to plan are a world away from the toilet cleaning and bed making that began her career.

She said: "I'm from Lytham originally and, from Blackpool College, I went to work as a hotel receptionist. As part of my training to be a receptionist I had to work in housekeeping at the restaurant so I built up good, all-round experience of the hotel.

"Now, I'm very pleased I did that.

"That kind of experience means that, later in your career, very little fazes you."

After working her way up the ladder to reception manager in a series of prestigious hotels, Melissa moved into marketing with the job at Hull University. That, she said, involved a huge amount of co-ordination.

"It was hard work -- very commercial and very busy. While realising the university was for students, there was constant pressure to further the income-generating side of things with corporate conferences and dinner dances. There were about 2,000 bedrooms in total -- it was vast."

Then, feeling she missed contact with the public Melissa decided, in her words, "to move back to the right side of the Pennines" to take the job at Hoghton Tower.

"It's very humbling working here," she said. "The house was built in 1565 and events here are so important. They help preserve the house for future generations."

Although the house is only open to the public in July, August and September, the many events held throughout the year give visitors plenty of reasons to drop by.

Melissa said: "I want to generate awareness that, although the hall is open to the public for three months of the year plus bank holidays, it is open for events all year round.

"Groups of 20 and over can book for a guided tour and people can book the tower exclusively for weddings.

"It makes a fairytale venue for something like that."

And, between June 26 and July 12, Shakespeare will return to the tower for the first time in 400 years in an atmospheric production of Twelfth Night.

The extensive 16th century grounds and gardens will form the perfect setting for Shakespeare's tale of romantic confusion.

As Melissa said: "When you stand in the courtyard, the stones just echo the past.

"That's why I love this job."