- published: 30 Sep 2013
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Blore is a small village and parish in the Staffordshire Moorlands District of England.
It is on an acclivity above Dovedale, three and a half miles north west of Ashbourne, including the hamlet of Swinscoe, one mile (1.6 km) to the south and a part of the parochial chapelry of Calton.
The ecclesiastical parish is Blore Ray with Okeover and the civil parish is Blore-with-Swinscoe, both with slightly different boundaries. Blore parish, exclusive of the portion of Calton, contains about 2,000 acres (8.1 km2) and 273 souls. Swinscoe contains about 1,000 acres (4.0 km2).
The village of Blore comprises Blore Hall (now owned by the Holiday Property Bond), St Bartholomew's parish church, the Old Rectory, a few other houses and several farms. The hall was first mentioned in 1331, though only one building remains substantially unaltered since 1661. The Holiday Property Bond is a life assurance bond investment in securities and assets. Its 35,000 Bondholders have exclusive access to Blore Hall.
Blore Hall was the home of the Bassett family, (from whom the Queen is descended) ; William Bassett, the last of the male line, died in 1601 and his magnificent alabaster tomb, erected by his wife about 1630, can be seen in the church.
Eric Blore (23 December 1887 – 2 March 1959) was an English comic actor. Blore was born in Finchley, Middlesex, England.
Aged eighteeen, he worked as an insurance agent for two years. He gained theatre experience while touring Australia. Originally enlisting into the Artists Rifles he was commissioned in the South Wales Borderers in World War I. Eventually he appeared in several shows and revues in England. His stage work in the musical Gay Divorcee with Fred Astaire earned him a role in films. In 1923 he went to the United States and began playing character roles on Broadway. After the death of his first wife, Violet Winter, he married Clara Mackin in 1926.
He moved onto film and appeared in over eighty Hollywood films. Blore, in his role as an English butler, appeared more frequently than any other supporting player in the series of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals at RKO Radio Pictures, five of nine. Some of his most memorable on-screen moments took place in Top Hat (1935) and Shall We Dance (1937). He reprised this role with Astaire for a final time in The Sky's the Limit (1943), delivering the line: "If I were not such a gentleman's gentleman, I could be such a cad's cad". Other memorable roles included Sir Alfred McGlennan Keith in the Preston Sturges film The Lady Eve (1941) with Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda, a small part as Charles Kimble in the second of the seven Bing Crosby-Bob Hope "Road" films, Road to Zanzibar (1941), and from 1940 to 1947 in eleven Lone Wolf films as Jamison the butler.