Shenton Hall | |
---|---|
![]() Shenton Hall in 2002, seen beyond the gatehouse from the churchyard of St John the Evangelist. | |
Location | Shenton, Leicestershire, England |
Coordinates | 52°35'57.0"N 1°25'46.1"W |
Built | 1629 |
Built for | William Wollaston |
Shenton Hall is a country house, opposite the church of St John the Evangelist, within the village of Shenton, in Leicestershire, England. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II* listed building. [1]
The house is privately-owned and not open to the public.
The manor of Shenton was first mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 as 'Scentone', where it is recorded as being owned by the magnate, administrator and landowner Henry de Ferrers. [2] This manor formed the estate that belongs to Shenton Hall today.
It is thought that a house stood on the site of Shenton Hall before the 17th century, but few records remain. Evidence for this is archaeological rather than recorded, as in ‘ The Buildings of England’ series, Nikolaus Pevsner observed that a 16th century doorcase in the basement at Shenton Hall was “possible evidence of an earlier house”. [3] In William Burton’s ‘Description of Leicester Shire’ (1622), it is noted that the Everard family once owned the estate - and presumably the house that existed - with Richard Everard, who died in 1556, buried at St John the Evangelist. [4] A brass wall memorial to the Everard family can be seen in the North Trancept of the church. [5] By the time Burton was writing in 1622, however, Sir Richard Molineux had inherited Shenton. [4] Molineux later died in 1622, and Shenton was passed to one of his heirs.
William Wollaston purchased the 2,300-acre (930 ha) estate at Shenton in 1626 (or 1625, by some accounts). He was born in 1581 to Henry Wollaston and Sarah Burgis. [6] Though the family had humble origins from Staffordshire, Henry Wollaston had established a successful drapery business in the City of London, after being apprenticed to a woollen draper as a young man. [7] In 1616, Henry Wollaston died and William - being his eldest son - inherited his father’s fortune, which enabled him to purchase Shenton Hall.
William Wollaston had first married the daughter of a clothier, Anne Worsley in 1614, who died in 1616. [8] Later that year he then married Anne Whitgreve and by 1626, had two sons, Henry and William. [9] Another son, John Wollaston, was born at Shenton in 1627 but died in the same year, therefore making him the first Wollaston to be buried at St John the Evangelist. [10]
Records state that William Wollaston did not begin to build (or rebuild) Shenton Hall until 1629. [11] Wollaston incorporated the datestone WW 1629 into the gatehouse. [1] The construction of Shenton Hall would have improved their status as a landed family. In the same year, he was appointed High Sheriff of Leicestershire. [12] Therefore, Wollaston is thought to have had royalist sympathies during the English Civil War some years later (1642-1651), but did not have an active role. [13]
William Wollaston survived his first son Henry at his death in December 1666. Thus, his second son - also named William - inherited Shenton Hall. He married Elizabeth Cave during the 1600s, and had two daughters, Anne and Rebecca, that survived into adulthood. Like his father, William Wollaston was appointed High Sheriff of Leicestershire in 1672. [14] His eldest daughter, Anne, married Sir John Chester in 1686 at Shenton, and believed that they would inherit Shenton Hall. At her father's death in August 1688, though he bequeathed large sums to both his daughters, Shenton was passed to a male cousin, the priest, writer and philosopher also named William Wollaston. [15]
William Wollaston, the cousin, only received the reversion of Shenton Hall, meaning that it would presumably return to the male heir of Anne and Sir John Chester. Sir John Chester and Anne Chester continued to live at Shenton Hall, even after Wollaston's death in 1724, when his widow Mrs. Wollaston owned the house. Sir John Chester eventually inherited Chicheley Hall, and moved there to rebuild it in the Baroque style. [16]
The house was greatly extended to the rear in 1862. The Wollastons occupied the house until 1940. During World War II the army took possession and the prisoners of war were accommodated on the estate. [17]
The entry for the Grade II* listing from Historic England reads:
House. c.1620 but doubled in size in the mid C19...brick with stone dressings and plain tiled roof. Entrance front of three storeys and six bays, asymmetrical. The outer bays are segmental full height bay windows set beneath coped gables, and the central bay is a full height canted bay window which contains the former doorway, now a window. Four light mullioned and transomed windows on each floor to its left, along with a side wall stack. ... High parapet runs between the outer gables. Main entrance now in eastern elevation in full height bay, part of the Victorian additions, in a Jacobean style with segmentally arched doorway and strapwork relief decoration above. Victorian range echoes the style of the original, but on a bigger scale, using large mullioned and transomed windows, departing from the domestic scale only with a machicolated tower at the western angle. [18]
The architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner wrote about the notable "chimneypiece of 1649, carved with hunting and biblical scenes " that is fixed in the sitting-room next to the drawing-room on the south-east front. Commenting more generally on the house, he remarked that it has a "romantic, distinctly Victorian silhouette". [19]
William Wollaston was a school teacher, Church of England priest, scholar of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, theologian, and a major Enlightenment era English philosopher. He is remembered today for one book, which he completed two years before his death: The Religion of Nature Delineated. He led a cloistered life, but in terms of eighteenth-century philosophy and the concept of natural religion, he is ranked with British Enlightenment philosophers such as Locke, Berkeley, and Hume.
Stanford Hall is a stately home in Leicestershire, England, near the village of Stanford on Avon and the town of Lutterworth, Leicestershire. The population of any residents in the area is included in the civil parish of Misterton with Walcote.
Measham is a large village in the North West Leicestershire district in Leicestershire, England, near the Derbyshire, Staffordshire and Warwickshire boundaries. It lies off the A42, 4+1⁄2 miles (7.2 km) south of Ashby de la Zouch, in the National Forest. Historically it was in an exclave of Derbyshire absorbed into Leicestershire in 1897. The name is thought to mean "homestead on the River Mease". The village was once part of Derbyshire before being transferred to Leicestershire.
Chicheley Hall, Chicheley, Buckinghamshire, England is a country house built in the first quarter of the 18th century. The client was Sir John Chester, the main architect was Francis Smith of Warwick and the architectural style is Baroque. Later owners included David Beatty, 2nd Earl Beatty and the Royal Society. Chicheley Hall is a Grade I listed building.
Bishop Burton is a village and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It lies on the A1079 road approximately three miles (5 km) to the west of the market town of Beverley.
Bardon is a civil parish and former village in North West Leicestershire about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) southeast of the centre of Coalville. The parish includes Bardon Hill, which at 912 feet (278 m) above sea level is the highest point in Leicestershire. With the population remaining less than 100, information from the 2011 census was included in the civil parish of Ellistown and Battleflat.
Nevill Holt is a hamlet and civil parish in the Harborough District of Leicestershire, England. It is situated about 6 miles (10 km) northeast of Market Harborough, 5 miles (8 km) northwest of Corby and lies close to the borders with Northamptonshire and Rutland. It is on the north side of the Welland valley. According to the 2001 census the parish had a population of 28. At the 2011 census the population remained less than 100 and was included in the civil parish of Horninghold.
Benjamin Ferrey FSA FRIBA was an English architect who worked mostly in the Gothic Revival.
Shenton is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Dadlington and Sutton Cheney, in the Hinckley and Bosworth district, in the county of Leicestershire, England, situated 2.20 miles (3.54 km) south-west of Market Bosworth. Shenton was formerly a chapelry and township of the parish of Market Bosworth. The settlement is almost entirely agricultural, containing several farms. Much of the land has been in the same family since William Wollaston purchased the manor in 1625. It is essentially a privately owned estate village and has seen comparatively little modern development. It has been designated a conservation area. The settlement lies either side of the Sence Brook, which is crossed by a picturesque Victorian bridge. The area is fairly flat, and subject to flooding. In 1931 the parish had a population of 154.
This is a list of Sheriffs and High Sheriffs of Leicestershire, United Kingdom. The Sheriff is the oldest secular office under the Crown. Formerly the High Sheriff was the principal law enforcement officer in the county but over the centuries most of the responsibilities associated with the post have been transferred elsewhere or are now defunct, so that its functions are now largely ceremonial. Under the provisions of the Local Government Act 1972, on 1 April 1974 the office previously known as Sheriff was retitled High Sheriff. The High Sheriff changes every March.
Henry Woodyer (1816–1896) was an English architect, a pupil of William Butterfield and a disciple of A. W. N. Pugin and the Ecclesiologists.
St John the Evangelist's Church stands to the west of the village of Norley, Cheshire, England. The church is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II* listed building. It is an active Anglican parish church in the diocese of Chester, the archdeaconry of Chester and the deanery of Frodsham. Its benefice is combined with those of Christ Church, Crowton, and St John the Evangelist, Kingsley.
St John the Evangelist's Church is in Walton, Warrington, Cheshire, England. It was built as a private estate church towards the end of the 19th century but is now an active Anglican parish church in the diocese of Chester, the archdeaconry of Chester and the deanery of Great Budworth. The church is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II* listed building.
St John the Evangelist's Church is in the small village of Byley, Cheshire, England. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II listed building. It is an active Anglican parish church in the diocese of Chester, the archdeaconry of Chester and the deanery of Middlewich. Its benefice is combined with that of St Michael and All Angels, Middlewich. The architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner regarded it as being "really very beautiful" with a "minimum of motifs, but a maximum of materials".
Francis Smith of Warwick (1672–1738) was an English master-builder and architect, much involved in the construction of country houses in the Midland counties of England. Smith of Warwick may refer also to his brothers, or his son.
Henry Isaac Stevens FRIBA was an architect based in Derby. He was born in London, in 1806, and died in 1873. In the late 1850s he changed his name to Isaac Henry Stevens.
Gaddesby Hall is an 18th-century brick-built house in the village of Gaddesby, Leicestershire. It was built in the late 1740s as a three-storey house with additions of 1868. It is a Grade II listed building.
William Slater was an English architect who was born in Northamptonshire and practised in London. He oversaw restoration of many churches, latterly in partnership with R. H. Carpenter.
Lowesby Hall is a large Grade II* Georgian mansion in the parish and former manor of Lowesby, eight miles east of Leicester in Leicestershire. It is a famous fox-hunting seat in the heart of the Quorn country. The poem "Lowesby Hall" by the Victorian English foxhunting MP William Bromley Davenport (1821–1884) was a parody of Alfred Tennyson's 1835 poem Locksley Hall.
St Peter's Church is a church in Bardon, Leicestershire. It is a Grade II listed building.