The Manor House in Harrogate “the most romantic place in the country”

It is safe to say love is constantly in the air at The Manor House in Harrogate as several couples who live there are set to celebrate Valentine’s Day – including two people who have just got engaged. 

Home manager Stephanie Foulds said:

Here at The Manor House, we have nine happy couples and these lovely people can live and be together whatever their circumstances may be. 

So it is indeed an honour to be a prime candidate for the most romantic care home in the country.  Our aim is to live like one big family and provide an environment where love, friendship and kindness can blossom. 
 
There are lifelong couples who enter our care home together and there are people who come in alone who form new friendships and relationships. With so many social activities and events taking place, romantic relationships can blossom and we support people to continue to enjoy their lives through the bonds they form. Love is where the heart is, and our home is where the heart is.

Residents Geoff Fawcett and Kathleen Wainwright have only been together since last summer and got engaged in November 2023. 

They first met when The Manor House was invited to a gala and party at Brackenfield School in celebration of the Coronation of King Charles and Camilla. Geoff, now 90, had already expressed an interest in Kathleen, now 85, and said she looked like a real lady and had stolen his heart. 

They have been inseparable since that day and happy memories already include Geoff introducing Kathleen to Chinese food, attending a classical music concert and discovering similar musical tastes, singing together in Anchor’s The Manor House’s choir, outings at Harrogate’s panto and on a canal boat in Skipton where they ate fish and chips. 

Before they met, Geoff worked in the civil service in Hong Kong for 30 years and Kathleen taught music at infant schools in the Harrogate area. 

The Manor House residents George and Janet Robinson have been married for 59 years plus one year spent courting after meeting at the Palais de Danse in Nottingham.
 
Happy memories together include travelling after their children left home and they have been real globetrotters – visiting Russia, Thailand, Fiji, the Cook Islands, Dubai, the United States, Hawaii, Canada and Australia twice and New Zealand five times. George is now 85 and Janet 81. 

Ken and Laura Richards have lived at Anchor’s The Manor House since 2022 and have an amazing love story to tell. 

They met at a student welcoming party at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia after both had gone there to work in their first job as lecturers after graduating. Laura had graduated from the University of Rome and gone to Slovenia to lecture in Italian. Ken had graduated from Lincoln College at Oxford University and gone to Ljubljana to become the first English person to lecture in English since the war. 

Ken, now 89, and Laura, now 87, went out together and were married in Rome in 1962 in an abandoned chapel in the Borghese Gardens. 

They remained working in Ljubljana – a place they both loved – for several years before moving to teach at other European universities and eventually moving to England to lecture at universities here until retirement. 

They both have many childhood memories of the war years and Ken particularly remembers hearing an air raid siren and retreating to the family shelter, a raid that signalled the start of the German blitz. Ken, who was just six at the time, still remembers the orange glow in the sky barely a mile or two away when he eventually emerged from the shelter. 

Before she met Ken, Laura always swore that she hated Volkswagen Beetles. Then Ken arrived in her life driving a grey Volkswagen Beetle. 

The Manor House also has a poignant story of a couple who lived there. Helen Edgar, 79, lived at the home with her husband John. 

They were married 33 years and met after she placed an advert in the personal column of the Yorkshire Post and got 40 replies. She says: “John was the last and the best!” Helen moved to The Manor House in September 2022 to be with John for the last year of his life. Sadly he passed away in September 2023.

Enjoying an idyllic location and close to the heart of the Yorkshire Dales National Park, The Manor House Harrogate care home also has the benefit of private landscaped gardens, while being close to the array of local amenities that Harrogate has to offer. To find out more, click here.