Stoughton Grange was a country house in the parish of Stoughton in Leicestershire and the family seat of the Farnham and Beaumont family. The house dated back to 15th century but was demolished in 1926, after being a successful family home for over five hundred years.
The earliest record of the Grange was during the reign of Edward the Confessor between 1042-1066 at a place known as “Stoctone”. At the Domesday survey of 1068 the land around Stoctone had been granted to Hugh de Grandmesnil, [1] later descending to Robert Bossu, Earl of Leicester, who founded Leicester Abbey. In 1157 Bossu gave what was now Stoughton to the Abbey and the land became a great source of income for the Abbey from the arable and pasture farmland.
The next four hundred years the estate was improved and saw the construction of St. Mary and All Saints Church in the village during the 13th century and Abbott John Penny erected the first building known as “Stoughton Grange” in the 15th century. The church became the family church for the later resident families of the house and the family crypt is inside the church along with numerous memorials to the family. [2] [3]
In 1538 the Abbey and estates were surrendered to King Henry VIII and in 1560 Queen Elizabeth I granted Stoughton to John Harington. The Stoughton estate was then purchased by Thomas Farnham who was the ‘Chancellor of the Exchequer’ to Elizabeth I. [4]
For over three hundred years the Stoughton Estate remained in the ownership of the Farnham family and its descendants. The family name changed through the marriage of Farnham to the Beaumont family who are believed to be descendants of John Beaumont. Sir Thomas Beaumont, 1st Baronet of Stoughton Grange lived at the house until he died in 1676. His son Sir Henry Beaumont inherited the estate was also an MP for Leicestershire. The house and estate later passed to Anthony Keck of Lincolns Inn as his wife was Anne Busby of Beaumont, daughter of William Busby and Catherine Beaumont his wife. They had a son Anthony James Keck who became a politician and married Elizabeth Legh (daughter of Peter Legh of Lyme). The couple lived at Stoughton Grange and had six children, the only son to survive and inherit was George Anthony Legh Keck who lived at the house until he married his cousin Elizabeth Atherton in 1802 so that he could inherit the family’s Bank Hall estate in Lancashire. It was following the marriage that he moved to Bank Hall which he later renovated in 1832 and used Stoughton as a second home. Legh Keck remained a member of parliament for Leicestershire and frequently travelled between the estates. Upon the death of Legh Keck his brother-in-law Thomas Powys, 3rd Baron Lilford, inherited his estates, but also died a year later.
In 1871 Harry Leycester Powys Keck lived at Stoughton Grange and was High Sheriff of Leicestershire. [5] Powys Keck was the last line of the family to live at the house until 1913 when the house was put up for sale. The house was not sold and it remained unoccupied until it was demolished in 1925–6. However, Powys Keck moved away after the Stoughton estate was bought by the Co-operative Wholesale Society Ltd. in 1919 and the site of the mansion was then known as Grange Farm, the centre of the society's dairy-farming in Leicestershire.
At the core of the house had a pre- Tudor foundation that evolved in style throughout the ages to an Elizabethan house. In the late 18th century Anthony James Keck (d. 1786), had the house re-modelled to a gothic style, that was thought to be superimposed upon the Elizabethan house. In 1820 the house gained the three small Gothic lodges (which still survive) on the road to Evington and on the Gartree road. The lodges bear the arms of the Keck family and are Grade II listed buildings. [6] [7] [8] The house was finished as a Victorian mansion in an Elizabethan style, complete with spired towers overlooking the garden front and parkland.
Oadby and Wigston is a local government district and borough in the English county of Leicestershire. It was formed in 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, from the merger of the Oadby and Wigston urban districts. The population of the district at the 2011 census was 56,170. The district forms part of the Harborough constituency.
Wigston, or Wigston Magna, is a town in Leicestershire, England, just south of Leicester on the A5199. Wigston had a population of 32,321 in 2011.
Oadby is a small town in Leicestershire, three miles south east of Leicester city centre. The town is famous for Leicester Racecourse, situated on the border between Oadby and Stoneygate, and the University of Leicester Botanical Garden. Oadby had a population of 23,849 in 2011 and like its neighbour Wigston, Oadby is made up of five wards and is one of several satellite towns surrounding Leicester. The Borough of Oadby and Wigston is twinned with Maromme in France, and Norderstedt in Germany.
Baron Lilford, of Lilford in the County of Northampton, is a title in the Peerage of Great Britain. It was created in 1797 for Thomas Powys, who had previously represented Northamptonshire in the House of Commons. His grandson, the third Baron, served as a Lord-in-waiting from 1837 to 1841 in the Whig administration of Lord Melbourne. He was succeeded by his son, the fourth Baron, an ornithologist.
Robert de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Leicester was Justiciar of England 1155–1168.
Stoughton is a village and civil parish in the Harborough district of Leicestershire. The population at the 2011 census was 351.
Gaulby is a village in Leicestershire, England, 7 miles east of the city of Leicester. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 131,. including King's Norton and increasing to 241 at the 2011 census.
Gartree High School is a coeducational secondary school with academy status. Its age-range designation is 11–16. GCSEs have been taught since 2017 and its first GCSE results published in 2019. The school is situated in Oadby, a town on the south side of Leicester, England.
Thomas Atherton Powys, 3rd Baron Lilford, was a British peer and Whig politician.
Garendon Abbey was a Cistercian abbey located between Shepshed and Loughborough, in Leicestershire, United Kingdom.
Bank Hall is a Jacobean mansion in Bretherton, Lancashire, England. It is a Grade II* listed building and is at the centre of a private estate, surrounded by parkland. The hall was built on the site of an older house in 1608 by the Banastres who were lords of the manor. The hall was extended during the 18th and 19th centuries. Extensions were built for George Anthony Legh Keck in 1832–1833, to the design of the architect George Webster.
Colonel George Anthony Legh-Keck (1774–1860) was a British MP in the Georgian era who owned landed estates in Leicestershire and Lancashire.
Atherton Hall was a country house and estate in Atherton historically a part of Lancashire, England. The hall was built between 1723 and 1742 and demolished in 1824. In 1894 this part of Atherton was incorporated into Leigh. Christopher Saxton's map shows there was a medieval deer park here in the time of Elizabeth I.
Anthony James Keck was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1765 to 1780.
Thomas Powys, 2nd Baron Lilford was a British peer. He was the son of Thomas Powys, 1st Baron Lilford and Mary Mann of Lilford Hall. He succeeded his father as Baron Lilford in 1800. He was educated at Eton College, St John's College, Cambridge and Lincoln's Inn (1794). He married Henrietta Maria Vernon Atherton of Atherton Hall, Leigh on 5 December 1797 at Penwortham, Lancashire and they had twelve children.
Sir Anthony Keck was a British lawyer and politician. He was a member of Parliament between 1691 and 1695, and served as Commissioner of the Great Seal from 1689 to 1690.
Sir Thomas Beaumont of Stourton Grange, Leicestershire was an English Member of Parliament for Leicester.