Madeley Court is a 16th-century country house in Madeley, Shropshire, England which was originally built as a grange to the medieval Wenlock Priory. It has since been restored as a hotel.
The house is ashlar built in two storeys to an L-shaped plan and is a Grade II* listed building. [1] To the south west of the house is a 16th-century gatehouse which is separately grade I listed. [2]
After the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the manor of Madeley was acquired in 1544 from Wenlock Priory by Sir Robert Brooke, afterwards Speaker of the House of Commons, [4] who built his house there in 1553 on the site of an earlier monastic grange. [5] The manor passed down in the Brooke family. [6]
In 1651 the house was occupied by a Roman Catholic, Francis Wolfe, when he received a visit from Charles II, accompanied by Richard Penderel, when escaping after the Battle of Worcester. The house then had several hiding places but Wolfe advised the house was no longer safe for concealment and let the king stay overnight in a barn (now part of Upper House) [7] while Wolfe and Penderel unsuccessfully scouted the Severn crossings which were patrolled by Parliamentary troops. Following this, the King and Penderal returned to the latter's home at Boscobel House, from where the King subsequently headed for exile in France. [8]
In 1727 Basil Brooke died a minor and the manor was divided between his two sisters, Catherine and Rose. [6] When Catherine died her half passed to her husband John Unett Smitheman and from him to their son John who sold it in 1774 to Abraham Darby III. In 1781 Darby sold it to his former brother-in-law Richard Reynolds, [9] his partner in the Coalbrookdale Company. Rose's half was subdivided between her four daughters. By 1781, Richard Reynolds had gradually acquired those portions as well, thus reuniting the holding under one name in 1780–81. [10]
Eminent as Quaker philanthropist and ironmaster, Reynolds died in 1816. His real property then descended to his son Joseph and his daughter Hannah Mary Rathbone. In 1824, on the partition of the inheritance, Madeley came to Joseph who conveyed it to his three sons in 1853: a seventh to Thomas Reynolds, three sevenths to Joseph Gulson Reynolds, and three sevenths to Dr. William Reynolds. Thomas (d. 1854) left his seventh to his two brothers. [11]
Between 1871 and 1889 the manor passed by various means to the Ball family, descendants of Joseph Reynolds's daughter Rebecca and her husband (and second cousin) Joseph Ball. In 1891 eleven members of the family settled their shares or interests in the manor on trustees, the leading trustee being the Revd. C. R. Ball, locally reputed lord of the manor. The manor remained in the hands of the Ball trustees for the rest of its existence, probably until c. 1940; it became the custom to appoint two trustees from the Revd. A. W. Ball's descendants, two from those of his brother Canon C. R. Ball. Canon Ball died in 1918, the leading trustee thereafter apparently being his nephew E. A. R. Ball (d. 1928). [12]
The land on which Madeley Court stands was separated from the manor in 1540. The earliest part of the building dates from the 13th century and was occupied by a variety of tenants until John Brooke, son of Sir Robert, inherited it c.1572. He renovated and extended it and further remodelling took place in the 17th century. A large formal garden was created, surrounded by red brick walls, in which stands an elaborate sundial. The sundial is separately grade II* listed. [13] The house was partly tenanted by Abraham Darby I from 1709 until his death.
After Basil Brooke's premature death in 1727 the house went into decline. [14] Tenanted by a succession of gentleman and yeoman farmers it suffered from the ravages of coal mining. In 1880 it was described as ‘fast going to decay’ and ‘a scene of utter desolation’. [15] Some repairs were made in 1904 but by the 1970s the hall range and garden walls were in a ruinous condition, the gatehouse was cracking and by 1977 none of the buildings were habitable.
In 1973 Telford Development Corporation embarked on a restoration project, making the house structurally sound and weatherproof in 1976–79 and later partly dismantling and rebuilding the gatehouse. The property was later converted into a hotel under the guidance of architect Jim Roberts. It is now (2014) the Mercure Madeley Court Hotel. [16]
Ironbridge is a large village in the borough of Telford and Wrekin in Shropshire, England. Located on the bank of the River Severn, at the heart of the Ironbridge Gorge, it lies in the civil parish of The Gorge. Ironbridge developed beside, and takes its name from, The Iron Bridge, a 100-foot (30 m) cast iron bridge that was built in 1779.
Telford is a town in Shropshire, England. It is the administrative centre of Telford and Wrekin borough, a unitary authority which covers the town, its suburbs and surrounding settlements. The town is inland and near the River Severn.
Baron Forester, of Willey Park in the County of Shropshire, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 17 July 1821 for Cecil Weld-Forester, who had previously represented Wenlock in the House of Commons. Born Cecil Forester, he assumed the additional surname of Weld by royal licence in 1811. His son, the second Baron, also represented Wenlock from 1790 in Parliament, and later served in the Tory administration of Sir Robert Peel as Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms from 1841 to 1846.
Coalbrookdale is a village in the Ironbridge Gorge in Shropshire, England, containing a settlement of great significance in the history of iron ore smelting. It lies within the civil parish called the Gorge.
Wellington is a constituent market town of Telford and a civil parish in the borough of Telford and Wrekin, Shropshire, England. It is situated 3 miles (4.8 km) northwest of Telford town centre and 12 miles (19 km) east of Shrewsbury. The summit of The Wrekin lies 3 miles southwest of the town. The population of the town was 25,554 in 2011.
Shropshire was established during the division of Saxon Mercia into shires in the 10th century. It is first mentioned in 1006. After the Norman Conquest it experienced significant development, following the granting of the principal estates of the county to eminent Normans, such as Roger De Montgomery and his son Robert de Bellême.
Broseley is a market town in Shropshire, England, with a population of 4,929 at the 2011 Census and an estimate of 5,022 in 2019. The River Severn flows to its north and east. The first iron bridge in the world was built in 1779 across the Severn, linking Broseley with Coalbrookdale and Madeley. This contributed to the early industrial development in the Ironbridge Gorge, which is now part of a World Heritage Site.
Madeley is a constituent town of Telford and a civil parish in the borough of Telford and Wrekin, Shropshire, England. The parish had a population of 17,935 at the 2001 census.
The Iron Bridge is a cast iron arch bridge that crosses the River Severn in Shropshire, England. Opened in 1781, it was the first major bridge in the world to be made of cast iron. Its success inspired the widespread use of cast iron as a structural material, and today the bridge is celebrated as a symbol of the Industrial Revolution.
Sir Basil Brooke, English metallurgist and recusant, inherited the manor of Madeley, Shropshire from his father. This contained iron and steel works and coal mines. The coal mines had been worked in his father's time, coal being transported on the River Severn to cities and towns from Shrewsbury to Gloucester.
Haberdashers' Abraham Darby Academy in Telford, Shropshire, England, is acoeducational secondary school on Ironbridge Road in Madeley which was founded in 1937. It is named after Abraham Darby III and is situated one mile from the Iron Bridge which he built in 1779. In September 2008 the school was converted to an academy through a link to Haberdashers' Adams, and was accepted by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF).
Sir Robert Broke SL was an English judge, politician and legal writer. Although a landowner in rural Shropshire, he made his fortune through more than 20 years' service to the City of London. MP for the City in five parliaments, he served as Speaker of the House of Commons in 1554. He is celebrated as the author of one of the Books of authority. A prominent religious conservative, he founded a notable recusant dynasty. His surname is also rendered Brooke, and occasionally Brook, which are, for modern readers, better indicators of pronunciation.
Woodside is a residential area of Telford, Shropshire, England.
The Coalbrookdale Coalfield is a coalfield in Shropshire in the English Midlands. It extends from Broseley in the south, northwards to the Boundary Fault which runs northeastwards from the vicinity of The Wrekin past Lilleshall. The former coalfield has been built on by the new town of Telford.
Abraham Darby IV was an English ironmaster.
Richard Penderel was a Roman Catholic farmer, and a supporter of the Royalist cause during the English Civil War. He assisted with the escape of Charles II after the Battle of Worcester in September 1651.
William Reynolds was an English ironmaster and a partner in the ironworks in Coalbrookdale in Shropshire, England. He was interested in advances in science and industry, and invented the inclined plane for canals.
Revd. Charles Richard Ball was the leading trustee and reputed Lord of Madeley Manor. In Peterborough, he was the Vicar of St Paul's Church and the Honorary Canon of Peterborough Cathedral.
Ketley Ironworks was an ironworks in Ketley, in Shropshire, England. Established in 1756, it was one of the largest ironworks in Britain during its ownership by William Reynolds and his brother Joseph.
St Mary's Church is a Roman Catholic church in Madeley, Shropshire, England. It was built from 1852 to 1853 and was designed by Joseph Hansom in the Gothic Revival style. It is located on the corner of the High Street and Hanover Close. From 1769, the church congregation went to the presbytery next to the church, where Catholic Mass was celebrated in secret in a chapel. According to Historic England, it "is a very rare survivor of a house," and a Grade II listed building.