 | This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations .(March 2013) |
Bretby Hall is a country house at Bretby, Derbyshire, England, north of Swadlincote and east of Burton upon Trent on the border with Staffordshire. It is a Grade II listed building. [1] The name Bretby means "dwelling place of Britons".
The first Bretby Hall was built in 1630 after Thomas Stanhope bought the manor of Bretby from the family of Stephen de Segrave, to whom it had been granted by Ranulph de Blondeville, 4th Earl of Chester.
In 1628, his grandson Philip was made Earl of Chesterfield by King Charles I of England. From then on, Bretby Hall was the ancestral home of the Earls of Chesterfield.
The second Earl was responsible for a complete restyling of the gardens so that some compared them favourably with the gardens at Versailles.
The fifth Earl demolished the mansion and built the present Hall (c.1812) to a design by Sir Jeffry Wyatville.
The sixth Earl, known as the "racing Earl", loved cricket and shooting, so he built a cricket pitch and raised game birds.
Following the death of the seventh Earl in 1871, the Estate passed to his widowed mother, Anne Elizabeth, Dowager Countess of Chesterfield, [2] who was a close friend of, Benjamin Disraeli. On the death of the Countess, her estates devolved upon Lord Porchester, [2] the eldest son of her daughter, Evelyn (died 1875), who had married Henry Herbert, 4th Earl of Carnarvon in 1861. The 5th Earl of Carnarvon, the famous egyptologist for whom Howard Carter discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun, commenced breaking up the Bretby estate during World War I. The Carnarvons never lived at Bretby Park, preferring their home at Highclere Castle, near Newbury, Berkshire. They did make regular visits, however, particularly for shooting. The main estate was sold to John Downing Wragg, a Swadlincote industrialist. The proceeds helped to fund Carter's search for the tomb of Tutankhamen in Egypt in the early 1920s.
In 1926, the Hall was sold to Derbyshire County Council and was run as Bretby Hall Hospital until 28 February 1997. It opened as a sanatorium to treat children but became an orthopaedic centre.
The hall was sold to a private developer and converted to luxury apartments and suites. [3]
Bretby is a village and civil parish in the south of Derbyshire, England, north of Swadlincote and east of Burton upon Trent, on the border between Derbyshire and Staffordshire. The population of the civil parish as of the 2011 census was 893. The name means "dwelling place of Britons". On the A511 road, there is a secondary settlement, Stanhope Bretby, which was the site of Bretby Colliery.
Earl of Chesterfield, in the County of Derby, was a title in the Peerage of England. It was created in 1628 for Philip Stanhope, 1st Baron Stanhope. He had already been created Baron Stanhope, of Shelford in the County of Nottingham, in 1616, also in the Peerage of England. Stanhope's youngest son the Hon. Alexander Stanhope was the father of James Stanhope, 1st Earl Stanhope while his half-brother Sir John Stanhope of Elvaston was the great-grandfather of William Stanhope, 1st Earl of Harrington.
George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon,, styled Lord Porchester until 1890, was an English peer and aristocrat best known as the financial backer of the search for and excavation of Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings. His country house, Highclere Castle, served as the filming location of the ITV/PBS television series Downton Abbey.
South Derbyshire is a local government district in Derbyshire, England. The population of the local authority at the 2011 Census was 94,611. It contains a third of the National Forest, and the council offices are in Swadlincote. The district also forms part of the wider Burton upon Trent and Swadlincote Green Belt, which covers the towns of Burton-upon-Trent in East Staffordshire and Swadlincote in South Derbyshire. The district is also landlocked between the districts of Derby, Derbyshire Dales, East Staffordshire, Erewash District, Lichfield District, North Warwickshire, North West Leicestershire and Tamworth.
Swadlincote is a former mining town in the district of South Derbyshire, England, lying within The National Forest area. It borders the counties of Leicestershire and Staffordshire, 5 miles (8 km) south-east of Burton upon Trent and north-west of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, and 11.5 miles (19 km) south-west of Derby. It also covers Newhall, Oversetts, Midway and the villages of Church Gresley and Woodville, with the sub-district of Goseley. It has a population of some 36,000. Castle Gresley is 2 miles (3 km) to the south-west and Albert Village 1.5 miles (2 km) to the south.
Sir John Gell, 1st Baronet was a British landowner from Derbyshire who acted as local Parliamentarian commander for most of the First English Civil War before resigning in May 1646. He was notorious for parading the body of his Royalist opponent through Derby after the Battle of Hopton Heath in March 1643.
Philip Stanhope, 5th Earl of Chesterfield KG, PC, FRS, FSA, known as Philip Stanhope until 1773, was a British politician and diplomat. He was British Ambassador to Spain between 1784 and 1787, Master of the Mint between 1789 and 1790, Joint Postmaster General between 1790 and 1798 and Master of the Horse between 1798 and 1804.
Elvaston Castle is a stately home in Elvaston, Derbyshire, England. The Gothic Revival castle and surrounding parkland is run and owned by Derbyshire County Council as a country park known as Elvaston Castle Country Park. The country park has 200 acres (0.81 km2) of woodlands, parkland and formal gardens.
Brizlincote is a civil parish in Burton upon Trent in East Staffordshire, England. Formerly farmland and a manor lying in Derbyshire, it was added to the municipal borough of Burton by the Local Government Act 1888 and formally transferred to Staffordshire in 1894. It was developed for housing in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The area of the parish was previously considered part of the (unparished) adjoining areas of Stapenhill and Winshill. All three areas are now separate parishes. Brizlincote has a population of around 5,000 and has the highest average household income of any parish in Burton.
Elizabeth Stanhope, Countess of Chesterfield was an Irish-born beauty. She was a courtier after the Restoration at the court of Charles II of England at Whitehall. She was the second wife of Philip Stanhope, 2nd Earl of Chesterfield.
Teversal is a small village in the Ashfield district of Nottinghamshire, England, 3 miles (5 km) west of Mansfield, close to Sutton-in-Ashfield and the boundary with Derbyshire. Former names include Tevershalt, Teversholt, Tyversholtee, Teversale, Tevershall and Teversall.
Anne Elizabeth Stanhope, Countess of Chesterfield was known as a political confidante.
George Stanhope, 6th Earl of Chesterfield, PC, styled Lord Stanhope until 1815, was a British Tory politician, courtier and race horse owner. He served as Master of the Buckhounds under Lord Melbourne from 1834 to 1835.
Pixton Park is a country house in the parish of Dulverton, Somerset, England. It is associated with at least three historically significant families, successively by descent: Acland, amongst the largest landowners in the Westcountry; Herbert, politicians and diplomats; and Waugh, writers. The present grade II* listed Georgian mansion house was built circa 1760 by the Acland family and in 1870 was altered by Henry Herbert, 4th Earl of Carnarvon (1831–1890). Although Pixton Park is situated within the manor of Dulverton, the manorial chapel relating to Pixton is situated not at Dulverton but within the Church of St Nicholas, Brushford, across the River Barle, as the lordship of the manor of Dulverton was held from 1568 by the Sydenham family seated at Combe House, on the opposite side of the River Barle to Dulverton and Pixton.
Melbourne Castle was a medieval castle in Melbourne, Derbyshire. It was built on the site of an earlier royal manor house that had provided accommodation for noblemen hunting in a nearby royal park in the reign of King John. Construction of the castle was started in 1311 by Thomas, 2nd Earl of Lancaster, and continued until 1322, shortly before his execution, but the work was never fully completed.
George Philip Cecil Arthur Stanhope, 7th Earl of Chesterfield, styled Lord Stanhope until 1866, was a British soldier, and Conservative politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1860 until 1866 when he inherited his peerage and sat in the House of Lords. He was a cricketer who played first-class cricket for Nottinghamshire and was the first president of Derbyshire County Cricket Club.
Elizabeth Lyon, Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne, was an English noblewoman and the wife of Scottish peer John Lyon, 4th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne. Born to Lady Elizabeth Butler and Philip Stanhope, 2nd Earl of Chesterfield, her paternity was in doubt. It is possible that her actual father was James, Duke of York, who would in 1685 ascend the throne as King James II of England.
The Burton upon Trent and Swadlincote Green Belt is a green belt environmental and planning policy that regulates the rural space between the towns of Burton upon Trent and Swadlincote, in the counties of Derbyshire and Staffordshire, within the East Midlands region of England. Essentially, the function of the belt in this location is to prevent the towns merging by lessening urban sprawl. It is managed by local planning authorities on guidance from central government.
Henrietta Stanhope, Countess of Chesterfield, formerly Lady Henrietta Thynne, was the second wife of Philip Stanhope, 5th Earl of Chesterfield.
Portrait of Anne, Countess of Chesterfield is a large oil-on-canvas painting by the English portrait and landscape artist Thomas Gainsborough, completed between 1777 and 1778. It shows Anne Stanhope, wife of Philip Stanhope, 5th Earl of Chesterfield, sitting in a blue and while satin dress, sitting in a garden, and is one of the best known of Gainsborough's many portraits of English aristocrats.
4. https://www.bretbyhall.com a website dedicated to Bretby Hall past, present and future.
Coordinates: 52°47′57″N1°33′29″W / 52.79924°N 1.55797°W
