Milford Hall is a privately owned 18th-century English country house at Milford, near Stafford. It is the family seat of the Levett Haszard family and is a Grade II listed building.
Milford Hall is a privately owned 18th-century English country house at Milford, near Stafford. It is the family seat of the Levett Haszard family and is a Grade II listed building.
The estate passed to the Levett family in 1749 when Reverend Richard Levett, son of the Rector of Blithfield, Staffordshire, married Lucy Byrd, heiress of Milford and a descendant of the Byrd family of Cheshire. [1] [2] (The Levett family came from Sussex, and the Staffordshire Levetts retain ownership of the papers of family relation William Levett, who was groom of the bedchamber to King Charles I, accompanying the King to his imprisonment in Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight [3] and ultimately to his execution. [4] )
Milford Hall contains an ancient illuminated pedigree with heraldic arms of the family traced from its roots in Sussex and Normandy in the 11th century. [5] Also at Milford Hall is a replica of an ancient bronze seal found in the 19th century near Eastbourne (now in the collection of the Lewes Castle Museum) bearing the coat-of-arms of John Livet. [6] The signet is believed to have belonged to one of the first family members who was lord of the manor of Firle, East Sussex, in 1316. [7]
This Sussex family produced Sir Richard Levett, a powerful merchant and Lord Mayor of London and owner of Kew Palace, who was the son of Reverend Richard Levett (brother of William, courtier to King Charles) of Ashwell, Rutland, and Dr. William Levett, Principal of Magdalen Hall, Oxford, and Dean of Bristol. [8] The family is of Anglo-Norman descent and derives its name from the village of Livet (now Jonquerets-de-Livet) in Normandy. [9] The Levett family represented Staffordshire in Parliament in the 18th and 19th centuries.
A 19th century daughter of the house, Frances M. Levett, wrote several books, including Gentle Influence: or the Cousin's Visit, which were published in London under her first initials. [10]
Levett replaced the existing house with a new mansion in the Georgian style. The main east fronting block had three storeys and four bays flanked by two double storey two bayed wings and with a five-bay orangery attached to the south. The central doorway carried pediment and Ionic pilasters.
The house was much extended and altered in 1817 by his son, also Richard Levett, when the pilasters and pediment were removed and the main entrance was moved to the west front. [11]
The United Kingdom census, 1881 shows the Levett family and fourteen servants in residence.
About this time, two cousins married. Captain William Swynnerton Byrd Levett, JP, was named in part for his Swynnerton ancestors of Swynnerton, and Butterton. [12] He was an 1873 graduate of Eton College. [13]
The woman was Maud Sophia, also born a Levett, [14] the daughter of Major Edward Levett (10th Royal Hussars) of Rowsley, Derbyshire, a descendant of the Levetts of Wychnor Hall (or Wychnor Park), Staffordshire, and his wife Caroline Georgiana, daughter of Rev. Charles Thomas Longley, Archbishop of Canterbury. [15] (Major Levett's second wife was Susan Alice Arkwright, a descendant of Sir Richard Arkwright.) [16] Maud Levett was a writer on religious and spiritual topics, publishing several books.
The couple had two children, a boy and a girl. Their son Lieut. Richard Byrd Levett, who attended Eton like his father before him, joined the 60th Rifles, King's Royal Rifle Corps, was twice wounded and was killed in France in the First World War. [17] [18] He died in an assault on the town of Irles on the morning of 14 March 1917. His mother wrote a memoir of his life.
Their daughter Dyonese, who researched and wrote a family history, [19] married Colonel Gerald Haszard, OBE, Royal Marines. [20] who was nominated Sheriff of Staffordshire in 1950 [21] On the death of her father in 1929, she inherited the estate.
The Levetts of Milford Hall have long worshipped at nearby St. Thomas' Church, Walton-on-the-Hill, built in 1842 as a chapel of ease to the parish church at Berkswich. There are several monuments in the church to the family. [22] [23] For example, after World War I, Lieutenant Levett's parents erected a marble effigy in his honor at St Thomas's. [24] [25] His tomb displays the arms of Levett of Milford Hall for his father, William Swynnerton Byrd Levett, and the arms of Levett of Wychnor Park for his mother, Maud (Levett) Levett. St. Thomas's also contains unusual blue Minton Ltd tiles with the Levett initials in buff lettering. [26]
There are also memorials to the family in St. Augustine Church in nearby Rugeley, and at the church at Holy Trinity Church in Berkswich, Staffordshire, where the Levett and Chetwynd families had private pews. [27] [28]
The Levetts of Milford Hall have intermarried into other landowning families. As described above, the current owners of Milford Hall are descended from two branches of the Levett family which united in the marriage of Maud Sophia Levett, descendant of the Wychnor Hall and Packington Hall side, and William Swynnerton Byrd Levett, scion of the Milford Hall.
Nearby is Shugborough Hall, the ancestral estate of the Anson family, the Earls of Lichfield. The Levett family of Milford is related to the Ansons, and the Levett Haszard family sit on the board of Shugborough Hall. [29]
The Levetts also intermarried with the Bagot family from nearby Pype Hayes Hall, a branch of the Bagots of Bagot's Bromley, Staffordshire, and Blithfield Hall. [30]
The Levett-Scrivener family, for instance, live near Yoxford, Suffolk, where they have owned for centuries the ruins of Sibton Abbey, the only Cistercian abbey in East Anglia. [31] The Howard family, Dukes of Norfolk, were granted Sibton Abbey by the Crown at the dissolution of the monasteries. Sibton Abbey and Sibton Manor were subsequently sold in 1610 to Ralph Scrivener, barrister of Ipswich. The Abbey is in ruins, but the refectory and the south wall of the nave survive, although the ruins are heavily overgrown. [32]
Not all Levetts retained the family name. Lieut-Col Richard W. B. Mirehouse (1849–1914), High Sheriff of Pembrokeshire, Wales, 1886, and Lieutenant Colonel of 4th Batt. North Staffs Regiment, was born Richard W. B. Levett of Milford Hall. He changed his name to that of his mother's family. [33]
The Levett Haszard family retains ownership of Milford Hall. Milford Hall is private and the mansion and grounds are not open to the public. Col. Gerald Fenwick Haszard [34] served as High Sheriff of Staffordshire in 1952, and Richard Byrd Levett Haszard currently served likewise in 2009. [35]
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inquisitions and assessments johannis lyvett ferles.
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Whittington is a village and civil parish which lies approximately 3 miles south east of Lichfield, in the Lichfield district of Staffordshire, England. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 2,591, increasing to 2,603 at the 2011 Census. The parish council is a joint one with Fisherwick. The Coventry Canal borders the village to the north and east.
Milford is a village in the county of Staffordshire, England. It lies at the edge of Cannock Chase, on the A513 road between Stafford and Rugeley. Just to the north of the village is the River Sow.
Sir Walter Wagstaffe Bagot, 5th Baronet of Blithfield Hall, Staffordshire was an English Tory politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1724 and 1768.
Walter Bagot was an English cleric and landowner. He was the third son of Sir Walter Bagot of Blithfield Hall, Staffordshire.
Hamar Alfred Bass was a British brewer, race horse breeder and a Liberal Party politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1878 to 1898.
This is a list of the sheriffs and high sheriffs of Staffordshire.
Wychnor Hall is Grade II Listed early 18th-century country house near Burton on Trent, Staffordshire, formerly owned by the Levett Family. The hall has been converted to a Country Club.
Hooton Levitt is a village and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham in South Yorkshire, England; one of four villages in the county that carry the name of Hooton, meaning 'farmstead on a spur of land'. It has a population of 110, increasing to 132 at the 2011 Census.
Levett is a surname of Anglo-Norman origin, deriving from [de] Livet, which is held particularly by families and individuals resident in England and British Commonwealth territories.
John Levett of Wychnor Park, Staffordshire, was an English landowner and investor, and a Tory politician.
Packington Hall in Staffordshire was an English country house designed by architect James Wyatt in the 18th century. Originally built for the Babington family, it became the home of the Levett family of Wychnor Hall, in that same county, until the first half of the twentieth century. The Levetts had ties to Whittington, Staffordshire and nearby Hopwas for many years.
William Levett was the Oxford-educated personal chaplain to Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, whom he accompanied into exile in France, then became the rector of two parishes, and subsequently Principal of Magdalen Hall, Oxford and the Dean of Bristol.
Rev. Thomas Levett served as rector of Whittington, Staffordshire, for 40 years, and as a large landowner in addition to being a clergyman, played a role in the development of Staffordshire's educational system. He was also a member of one of Staffordshire's longest-serving families in ecclesiastical circles, having produced three rectors of the parish of Whittington. The Levett family also produced members of parliament, High Sheriffs of Staffordshire, Lichfield town recorders and businessmen who were friends and contemporaries of Samuel Johnson, Erasmus Darwin, writer Anna Seward, actor David Garrick and other local luminaries. Several streets in Lichfield are named for the family.
Theophilus Levett (1693–1746) was an attorney and early town clerk of Lichfield, Staffordshire, a prominent Staffordshire politician and landowner, and a member of a thriving Lichfield social and intellectual circle which included his friends Samuel Johnson, the physician Erasmus Darwin, the writer Anna Seward and the actor David Garrick, among others.
William Levett, Esq., was a long serving courtier to King Charles I of England. Levett accompanied the King during his flight from Parliamentary forces, including his escape from Hampton Court palace, and eventually to his imprisonment in Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight, and finally to the scaffold on which he was executed. Following the King's death, Levett wrote a letter claiming that he had witnessed the King writing the so-called Eikon Basilike during his imprisonment, an allegation that produced a flurry of new claims about the disputed manuscript and flamed a growing movement to rehabilitate the image of the executed monarch.
Sir Richard Levett, Sheriff, Alderman and Lord Mayor of London, was one of the first directors of the Bank of England, an adventurer with the London East India Company and the proprietor of the trading firm Sir Richard Levett & Company. He had homes at Kew and in London's Cripplegate, close by the Haberdashers Hall. A pioneering British merchant and politician, he counted among his friends and acquaintances Samuel Pepys, Robert Blackborne, John Houblon, physician to the Royal Family and son-in-law Sir Edward Hulse, Lord Mayor Sir William Gore, his brother-in-law Chief Justice Sir John Holt, Robert Hooke, Sir Owen Buckingham, Sir Charles Eyre and others.
Captain Egerton Bagot Byrd Levett-Scrivener (1857–1954) was a Royal Navy Flag Lieutenant and aide to Vice Admiral George Willes in the Far East. He was later promoted to Captain, and following his retirement became Bursar of Keble College, University of Oxford. Born Egerton Levett, he changed his name to Levett-Scrivener on an inheritance from his aunt of Scrivener family properties at Sibton Abbey, Suffolk, which he later managed. Levett was married to the daughter of English diplomat and ambassador Sir Harry Smith Parkes.
Thomas Levett-Prinsep was an English landowner in Derbyshire and Staffordshire. He took on the additional name of Prinsep on inheriting his uncle's holding of Croxall Hall.
William Levett was lord of the manor of the South Yorkshire village of Hooton Levitt, a village named in part for his ancestors, and became the owner of the patronage of Roche Abbey on marriage to the granddaughter of the Abbey's cofounder Richard FitzTurgis, a Norman baron who co-founded Roche with the great-nephew of one of England's most powerful Norman barons, Roger de Busli.
Sibton is a village and civil parish on the A1120 road, in the East Suffolk district, in the English county of Suffolk. It is near the towns of Saxmundham and Halesworth, the village of Peasenhall and the hamlet of Sibton Green. The church is dedicated to St Peter; there is also the remains of a medieval abbey, Sibton Abbey. There is a large stately house set in the grounds of Sibton Park which dates back 1827 in the Georgian period, which is now used as a hotel. The estate consists of 4500 acres, being part of the Wilderness Reserve where there are holiday cottages and a lake. The Parish is also in close proximity to the River Yox which runs past the White Horse Inn and down through Pouy Street, it then goes on past both the A1120 road and a small wooded area called Abbey Woods to pass through the grounds of Sibton Park and then on to Yoxford.