Activities at Iddenshall Hall Care Home

Today we have been celebrating Christmas Jumper day!

Residents and staff dressed up in their seasonal jumpers and 'strutted their stuff' on the catwalk at our annual Christmas Jumper Fashion Show in aid of the Save the Children Fund. The winner and the 2025 Queen of the Christmas Jumpers was Eva.   

Thank you to all our contestants, you all looked wonderful!    

The Cowboy Day celebration was truly grand this year. We decorated the entire venue to create a Western-inspired atmosphere, dressed up as cowboys, and enjoyed appetisers and drinks like whisky, rum, beer, and more. 

It was a successful party that everyone joined in. 

We celebrated 10 years of service to Sarah Pearce!

Well done Sarah on such a huge milestone! Sarah previously worked within the care team, but has since moved to the hospitality team.

John, Head Chef presented Sarah with her award, gold pin and flowers.

Thank you for your dedication to your residents and colleagues Sarah and a massive thank you.

Enjoy! Love Kirsty and the whole team x

The residents at Iddenshall Hall & Beeston View really enjoyed celebrating Valentine's Day together by making, decorating and, of course, tasting delicious heart-shaped biscuits and enjoying juicy strawberries, all accompanied by a glass of sparkling pink fizz!   

Christmas is fast approaching, and our residents have had a wonderful time posing in our Christmas photo booth either individually or with family members. 

We would like to thank John and Mark, two members of our talented maintenance team, who designed and made a fantastic moveable sleigh for the occasion which everyone was very keen to be photographed with.

Thankfully, Santa was available to complete the seasonal scene.   

This week we have been celebrating Carers Week and our Residents were very keen to acknowledge the wonderful care our dedicated and hard-working Carers give to them.

They worked hard making and decorating delicious cakes and individual rose posies and were thrilled to be able to present them to each Carer as a thank-you for all they do.

All the teams also received homemade cakes and boxes full of treats from chocolates, sweets, biscuits and all the naughty things in life!

The residents also made hand drawn thank you cards and arranged flower posies. Again a massive thank you to all our fabulous care team for all they do, each and every day for our residents.

This week our Residents were delighted to welcome two new and unusual woolly friends into their home.

Teddy and Carlos are two large but extremely well-behaved alpacas who came all the way from Knightley Alpaca Trekking in Stafford with their humans to spend an afternoon with us. And our Residents (and staff!) just loved them!

Teddy and Carlos visited all three of our communities at Iddenshall Hall & Beeston View, even meeting some of our Residents in their own rooms. They are such intuitive animals who seemed to sense when they needed to be especially calm and gentle. Their visit was so successful and fun and we cannot wait to welcome them back soon!

Our residents enjoyed the day making and tasting a cup of hot chocolate!

Each one added a special filling, choosing between marshmallows, grated chocolate, dark or white, etc. We also accompanied them with cakes of 2 flavours.

It was a sweet morning with a chocolate flavour.

This week we have held not one, but three Christmas parties at Iddenshall Hall & Beeston View! Each of our three communities enjoyed a festive celebration which started with a delicious traditional Christmas lunch, prepared and served by our talented chefs and hospitality team. 

Much to the delight of the residents, Santa, accompanied by two of his reindeer, then arrived with his sleigh laden with specially chosen gifts for everyone.

The party really got started when Lainey, one of our favourite external entertainers, arrived, with the residents joining her singing and dancing along to a whole host of popular and well-known seasonal songs.

It was so much fun and everyone was certainly full of the Christmas spirit!      

We were lucky enough to be an official stop on Day 3 of the Tour de Barchester cycle challenge and Residents and Staff were delighted to welcome the cycling team to a much-needed pit-stop at our home.

The riders were thrilled to receive a motorcycle escort down our driveway ridden by our Head Chef, John assisted by his pillion passenger, Tracy our Admin Assistant. They were welcomed by flag-waving, cheering Residents and Staff and celebrated on our winner’s podium which had been made by our Maintenance Manager, John.

The cycling team then enjoyed a delicious lunch provided by the homes talented hospitality team and a beautiful carrot cake and Tour de Barchester branded cookies made by our General Manager, Kirsty. The aim of this challenge was to raise money for the many charities the Barchester Foundation support and our home are proud to have raised £200 by riding the equivalent 250 miles of the tour on an exercise bike!

This was truly a team effort where our Residents and all of the departments at our home have been involved and an event which everyone enjoyed and has made us proud!

With the wonderful weather we're having, we celebrated World Cocktail Day in our gardens!

We started preparing the cocktails, adding fresh fruit like oranges and strawberries. In the other, we added cucumber and mint, we also used lemonade and ice, plus grenadine & Pimms.

The residents joined in, and everyone was happy, enjoying the flavour of their drinks and a pleasant conversation. It was a lovely afternoon and we've all now found the taste for what we'd like next time the sun is out!

We had a fantastic evening with live music of clarinet and flute from "Miles" and his accompanist.

Miles is the nephew of one of our residents, and he gives us a musical moment every year, which our residents really enjoy. 

They also enjoyed a glass of sherry and mince pies while listening to music.