| Horton Hall | |
|---|---|
 Horton Hall - photograph taken from the SE corner, 1935 | |
| Type | House |
| Location | Horton, Northamptonshire, England |
| Coordinates | 52°10′48″N0°47′57″W / 52.179939°N 0.7992363°W |
| Built | 1740 with earlier origins |
Horton Hall, known locally as Horton House, was a stone-built Georgian stately home, now demolished, located on a 3,764 acre estate stretching across nine parishes on the Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire borders. [1]
The earliest entry for Horton can be found in the Domesday Book from 1086, when Odbert held 2 hides "in Hortone". [2] The land passed down to his son Alouf de Merke in the following century but it is not until the early 14th century that Ralph de Botyler is certified Lord of the Manor of Horton, [3] implying the existence of a messuage of some significance. The manor passed to John Mortimer of Grendon who passed it on to Roger Salisbury, commemorated in 1492 by a brass plaque in St. Mary's Church at Horton. Roger's grand-daughter Mary married William Parr, uncle to Henry VIII's sixth and last queen, Catherine Parr. [4] Having become Lord of the Manor, William was created Baron Parr of Horton in 1543 and is memorialised with his wife Mary in a fine alabaster altar tomb in Horton Church. William had made Maud Parr his eldest daughter aged eight his heir in 1517. She was promised to the ten year old Ralph Lane and William saw over them, and their later marriage, until Ralph's twentieth birthday. [5]
Ownership passed to the first Earl of Manchester Henry Montagu in the early 17th Century. [6] Over the next 160 years, six generations of the Montagu family added to the house and extended the grounds. An estate map of 1622 [7] reveals a sizeable Tudor mansion built around two courtyards and an octagonal tower in its southeastern corner, the birth place of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, who later established the Bank of England. [8] By 1721, the Montagus had set about developing the house and estate, surrounding the house with formal gardens [9] in keeping with their growing influence both locally and in Parliament. [10] The last Montagu to live at Horton, George Montagu-Dunk, 2nd Earl of Halifax, extended the house even further commencing around 1742, eventually completely replacing the original medieval edifice with a grand Palladian mansion designed by Daniel Garrett, completed by Thomas Wright after 1753, when Garrett died. [11] Contemporary drawings reveal a central dome and two bows topped by domes, [12] the latter observed by Horace Walpole when he visited in 1763. [13]
By 1781, the Montagus had run out of male heirs and the entire estate was sold to Sir Robert Gunning. Horton House was described in 1791 as a spacious mansion of great beauty set in an extensive park with a pavilion at both ends of the park with follies, a menagerie, temples, serpentine lakes as well as out-buildings. [14] By the time that James Storer presented his engraving of the house in 1812, [15] the house looked much as it did in 1935 [16] but with the domes missing, presumed demolished. Four generations of the Gunning family lived at Horton Hall until 1888 when it was sold for its investment potential to Pickering Phipps II, a Northampton brewer. Phipps leased the house as a boarding school [17] until 1899, when the lease expired. Horton Hall had been neglected but was purchased the same year by George Harold Winterbottom, a wealthy industrialist, [18] together with the greater estate including land and properties in the villages and parishes of Horton, Hackleton, Piddington, Quinton, Preston Deanery, Stoke Goldington, Ravenstone, Roade and Hanslope. [19] Winterbottom set about extending the house, adding a new front and entrance hall to the north side, squaring the building off and completely refurbishing the interior, [20] commissioning a series of large murals on canvas by Sir Frank Brangwyn. [21] Winterbottom breathed new life in to the estate by building a new village hall at Hackleton and donating a cricket ground and pavilion for the newly formed Horton House Cricket Club, which thrive today. [22]
Winterbottom died in 1934, leaving his considerable fortune and estate to be divided amongst his widow and six children. Horton Hall had been refurbished, modernised, augmented with pleasure gardens and a swimming pool, and was just too large for private buyers in the midst of The Depression. [23] The House and gardens were sold to a developer and were demolished in 1936 to make way for new housing. Of the original 18th and 19th century buildings associated with the main house, [14] four are grade II listed and remain in use today. These include dual lodges, [24] The Menagerie, fully restored by Gervase Jackson-Stops, [25] [26] [27] The New Temple, "as fine as any at Stowe or Stourhead", [28] which was converted so that the portico forms the centre of a substantial property and was renamed Temple House, and finally the brick stable block and coach house, which was restored, converted and renamed Captain's Court. [29] The beautiful interiors, fireplaces, marbles, panelled rooms, main staircase, "stone and door knob" were all auctioned, [30] with some of the murals now held by the Dunedin Public Art Gallery, [31] and the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa both in New Zealand. [32]
Horton Hall was an historic building whose owners, as certified Lords of the Manor, had a duty of care to a large community of villages and tenants that was neither sustainable nor appropriate as a social model in the 20th century. [33] Those same owners were often historic world figures, six of whom were appointed High Sheriffs to a grateful County, from Roger Salisbury in 1467 to George Winterbottom in 1906. What remains of the original house are valuable fragments of the social history of England, some scattered across the globe.
Raunds is a market town in North Northamptonshire, England. It had a population of 9,379 at the 2021 census.
George Montagu-Dunk, 2nd Earl of Halifax, was a British statesman of the Georgian era. Due to his success in extending commerce in the Americas, he became known as the "father of the colonies". President of the Board of Trade from 1748 to 1761, he aided the foundation of Nova Scotia, 1749, the capital Halifax being named after him. When Canada was ceded to the King of Great Britain by the King of France, following the Treaty of Paris of 1763, he restricted its boundaries and renamed it "Province of Quebec".
Boughton is a village and civil parish in West Northamptonshire, England. It is situated approximately 4 miles (6 km) from Northampton town centre along the A508 road between Northampton and Market Harborough.
Brixworth is a village and civil parish in West Northamptonshire, England. The 2001 census recorded a parish population of 5,162, increasing to 5,228 at the 2011 census. The village's All Saints' Church is of Anglo-Saxon origin.
Harlestone is a village and civil parish in the West Northamptonshire district, in the ceremonial county of Northamptonshire, England. The parish had a recorded population of 445 in the 2011 census. From 1974 to 2021 it was in Daventry district.
Creaton is a village and civil parish in West Northamptonshire, England.
Charwelton is a village and civil parish about 5 miles (8 km) south of Daventry in Northamptonshire, England. The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 220.
Barnwell is a village in North Northamptonshire in England, 2 miles (3.2 km) south of the town of Oundle, 78 miles (126 km) north of London and 14 miles (22.5 km) south-west of Peterborough. The River Nene runs north of the village, separating it from Oundle.
Sulgrave is a village and civil parish in West Northamptonshire, England, about 5 miles (8 km) north of Brackley. The village is just south of a stream that rises in the parish and flows east to join the River Tove, a tributary of the Great Ouse.
Kingsthorpe is a suburb and civil parish of Northampton, England. It is situated to the north of Northampton town centre and is served by the A508 and A5199 roads which join at Kingsthorpe's centre. The 2011 Census recorded the population of the district council ward as 4,477.
Wootton is a former village about 3 miles (4.8 km) south of Northampton town centre that is now part of Northampton.
Horton is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Hackleton, in the West Northamptonshire district, in the ceremonial county of Northamptonshire, England. The village manor, Horton Hall, now demolished, was home to the first governor of the Bank of England and William Parr, 1st Baron Parr of Horton. An outline of its former nucleus can be seen in neighbouring fields, by its grade II park and garden which features an ornamental bridge.
Sulgrave Manor is a mid-16th century Tudor hall house in Sulgrave, Northamptonshire, UK, built by Lawrence Washington, the 3rd great-grandfather of George Washington, first President of the United States.
Hackleton is a village located in West Northamptonshire, just north of Buckinghamshire. It is 5 miles (8.0 km) south of Northampton town centre, and 2 miles (3.2 km) by road to the M1 London to Yorkshire motorway junction 15 and 11 miles (18 km) north of junction 14. London is 62 miles (100 km) south via junction 14 and 47 miles (76 km) southeast of Birmingham via junction 15. It lies on the busy B526 road from Northampton to Newport Pagnell, between Horton and Wootton. The parish area is about 1,030 acres (420 ha).
Abington Park, in the Abington district of Northampton, Northamptonshire, England, has lakes, aviaries, and a museum, as well as trees and grassy open spaces.
Preston Deanery is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Hackleton, in the West Northamptonshire district, in the ceremonial county of Northamptonshire, England. It is 4 miles (6 km) south of Northampton town centre and 1.5 miles (2 km) by road to the M1 London to Yorkshire motorway junction 15. It lies just off the B526 road from Northampton to Newport Pagnell, between Hackleton and Wootton, a former village which has become now a suburb of Northampton. The 2010 population estimate was 51.
Castle Ashby, often Castle Ashby House is a country house at Castle Ashby, Northamptonshire, England. It is one of the seats of the Marquess of Northampton. The house, church, formal gardens and landscaped park are Grade I listed.
Mapperton is a hamlet and civil parish in Dorset, England, 3 miles (4.8 km) south-east of Beaminster. Dorset County Council estimated that the population of the parish was 60 in 2013.
George Harold Winterbottom was an Edwardian business magnate, who dominated global bookcloth manufacture for bookbinding, making him "one of the wealthiest men of England". Bookcloth took over from more expensive materials like silk and leather as the dominant hardcover bookbinding material in the early 19th century, revolutionising the manufacture and distribution of books. Winterbottom seized the opportunity to effectively monopolise the production and supply of high quality bookcloth, which facilitated a country life for himself as a gentleman farmer and philanthropist.
Louisa Elizabeth Babb (1861–1901), known professionally as Minnie Byron, was an English mezzo-soprano and actress best known for her character performances of Opéra bouffe in the 1880s. However successful, Byron was not a career performer, using her brief public visibility to secure a more stable and prosperous future for herself and her children, an important footnote in social history or specifically, women's history.
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)Horton House Cricket Club [1]