Worksop Manor is a Grade I listed 18th-century country house in Bassetlaw, Nottinghamshire. It stands in one of the four contiguous estates in the Dukeries area of Nottinghamshire. Traditionally, the Lord of the Manor of Worksop may assist a British monarch at his or her coronation by providing a glove and putting it on the monarch's right hand and supporting his or her right arm. Worksop Manor was the seat of the ancient Lords of Worksop.
The house was an important English country house of the Talbot and Howard families between the 1580s and its destruction by fire in 1761; an even grander rebuilding was only partially completed, and after 1777 it was neglected and largely dismantled in the 1830s.
The building as it is now, greatly reduced and rebuilt but still very large, is mostly 18th and 19th-century. It has 2 and 3 storeys of ashlar with hipped slate roofs, forming a quadrangle approximately 25 bays wide by 14 bays deep. [1]
The Talbot family had owned Worksop Manor since the 14th century. Its manor house was for some time in 1580 as the prison of Mary, Queen of Scots. [2] [3]
In the 1580s a new house was built on the site for the very wealthy George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury, probably designed by Robert Smythson. It was a leading example of the Elizabethan prodigy house. [4] At the same time Smythson also designed the associated Worksop Manor Lodge, which survived in substantially original form until 2007 when it was burnt down. It is currently being restored. The lodge, occupied by Roger Portington, keeper of the Worksop parks, was compared to the Medici Villa di Pratolino. [5]
The house was much admired, especially for its long gallery on the top storey, where one chimneypiece had the date "1585". [6] In 1607 there were rumours about the grandeur of a mansion that George Home, 1st Earl of Dunbar was building in the ruins of Berwick Castle. George Chaworth wrote to Gilbert Talbot, 7th Earl of Shrewsbury saying he heard the long gallery at Berwick would make that built by his father at Worksop look like a garret or attic. [7]
Members of the Scottish royal family stayed at Worksop on their way to London after the Union of the Crowns. King James stayed at the main house in 1603 on his way south to take the throne of England. Anne of Denmark stayed in June 1603, travelling from the house of Edward Rye at Doncaster, [8] and holding court at Worksop on the King's birthday, 19 June. A record of kitchen expenses mentions Polish and Bolognese sausages, Westphalia bacon, and two Frenchmen were employed to fold napkins. [9] She gave William Cecil, the young son of Sir Robert Cecil, a jewel and tied it in his ear, and he danced with the 7-year-old Princess Elizabeth. [10] Anne of Denmark found time to write a letter in German to her brother Christian IV from Worksop, signing "im Pallast das Graffn von Schrosbery". [11] Her large crowd of followers was disorderly, and the Duke of Lennox and the Earls of Shrewsbury and Cumberland made a proclamation at Worksop that her followers should put aside any private quarrels, and hangers-on without formal roles should leave. [12]
In August 1604 Prince Charles stayed at Worksop when he travelled from Scotland. [13] He was accompanied by Dr Henry Atkins who described four days of music, and the young Duke of York's initiation into hunting, when deer were driven close to the house. [14]
At the end of the 17th century the house passed by marriage to the Dukes of Norfolk, in whose family it would remain until 1840. In 1701 Thomas Howard, 8th Duke of Norfolk doubled the size of the house, built stables and laid out large gardens. Edward Howard, 9th Duke of Norfolk also further improved the gardens. Mary Howard, Duchess of Norfolk had the house renovated but it burned down in 1761. [3]
Later that year, James Paine was commissioned to build a replacement for the burnt-out Elizabethan mansion. He planned a roughly square mansion with a vast hall in the central courtyard which would have been one of the largest houses ever built in England, had it been completed. Only one wing had been finished when work stopped on the house in 1767, but even this was on a palatial scale. On the death of the 9th Duke in 1777, the estate passed to a distant cousin, aged 57 and living in Surrey. Neither he nor his immediate successors lived at Worksop and it became neglected. Bernard Howard, 12th Duke of Norfolk gave it to his son, the Earl of Surrey, in 1815.
In 1838, the Earl of Surrey sold the estate to Henry Pelham-Clinton, 4th Duke of Newcastle of nearby Clumber Park for £375,000, who ruthlessly stripped the house. He demolished the main wing of the house with gunpowder, having sold off the roof lead and some fittings, as he was only interested in adding the land to his own estate. In spite of the money received from salvage and timber he made a huge loss on the purchase which seems to have been animated by anti-Catholic sentiment, the Duke of Norfolk having been a leading Catholic aristocrat. After a number of years the surviving parts of the house, that is the stable, the service wing and part of the eastern end of the main range, were reformed into a new mansion (pictured here), which was leased for a number of years by Lord Foley and afterwards by William Isaac Cookson, a manufacturer of lead. In 1890 a large part of the estate was sold by auction; the house and adjoining parkland was bought by Sir John Robinson, a Nottingham businessman, who felled many of the mature trees for sale. He was appointed High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire in 1901.
Since at least 1890 the estate has been home to the Worksop Manor Stud, which breeds thoroughbred horses.[ citation needed ]
Elizabeth Cavendish, later Elizabeth Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury, known as Bess of Hardwick, of Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire, was a notable figure of Elizabethan English society. By a series of well-made marriages, she rose to the highest levels of English nobility and became enormously wealthy. Bess was reportedly a shrewd businesswoman, increasing her assets with business interests including mines and glass-making workshops.
Bolsover Castle is in the town of Bolsover, in the north-east of the English county of Derbyshire. Built in the early 17th century, the present castle lies on the earthworks and ruins of the 12th-century medieval castle; the first structure of the present castle was built between 1612 and 1617 by Sir Charles Cavendish. The site is now in the care of the English Heritage charity, as both a Grade I listed building and a Scheduled Ancient Monument.
Worksop is a market town in the Bassetlaw District in Nottinghamshire, England. It is located 15 miles (24 km) south of Doncaster, 15 miles (24 km) south-east of Sheffield and 24 miles (39 km) north of Nottingham. Located close to Nottinghamshire's borders with South Yorkshire and Derbyshire, it is on the River Ryton and not far from the northern edge of Sherwood Forest. Other nearby towns include Chesterfield, Gainsborough, Mansfield and Retford. The population of the town was recorded at 44,733 in the 2021 Census.
Sheffield Manor Lodge, also known as Sheffield Manor or locally as Manor Castle, is a lodge built about 1516 in what then was a large deer park southeast of Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, to provide a country retreat and further accommodate George Talbot, the 4th Earl of Shrewsbury, and his large family. The remnant of this estate is now known as Norfolk Park. The housing estate of Manor is named after Sheffield Manor Lodge.
The Dukeries is an area of the county of Nottinghamshire so called because it contained four ducal seats. It is south of Worksop, which has been called its "gateway". The area was included within the ancient Sherwood Forest. The ducal seats were:
The Manor of Worksop is a feudal entity in the Dukeries area of Nottinghamshire, England. Held in Grand Serjeanty by a lord of the manor, it was originally connected with nearby Worksop Manor, a stately home.
Theobalds House in the parish of Cheshunt in the English county of Hertfordshire, north of London, was a significant stately home and (later) royal palace of the 16th and early 17th centuries.
George Home, 1st Earl of Dunbar, KG, PC was, in the last decade of his life, the most prominent and most influential Scotsman in England. His work lay in the King's Household and in the control of the State Affairs of Scotland and he was the King's chief Scottish advisor. With the full backing and trust of King James he travelled regularly from London to Edinburgh via Berwick-upon-Tweed.
Gilbert Talbot, 7th Earl of Shrewsbury, 7th Earl of Waterford, 13th Baron Talbot, KG, styled Lord Talbot from 1582 to 1590, was a peer in the peerage of England. He also held the subsidiary titles of 16th Baron Strange of Blackmere and 12th Baron Furnivall.
Baron Talbot is a title that has been created twice. The title was created first in the Peerage of England. On 5 June 1331, Sir Gilbert Talbot was summoned to Parliament, by which he was held to have become Baron Talbot.
Welbeck Abbey is an English mansion situated in the village of Welbeck, which is within the civil parish of Norton, Cuckney, Holbeck and Welbeck, in the Bassetlaw District of Nottinghamshire. It was the site of a monastery belonging to the Premonstratensian order in England and after the Dissolution of the Monasteries, a country house residence of the Dukes of Portland. It is part of the Dukeries, four contiguous ducal estates in North Nottinghamshire. The house is a Grade I listed building.
Robert Abraham (1773–1850) was an English building surveyor and later architect in London. He was the son of a builder and was educated as a surveyor as a pupil of James Bowen. He turned to architecture after 1818, and was chiefly employed by the leading Roman Catholic families in England, including the Duke of Norfolk and the Earl of Shrewsbury.
Thomas Howard, 3rd Viscount Howard of Bindon was an English peer and politician. He was a Knight of the Garter, Lord Lieutenant of Dorset 25 April 1601 – 1 March 1611, Custos Rotulorum of Dorset before 1605–1611, and Vice-Admiral of Dorset 1603–1611. He was the Member of Parliament for Dorset in 1563. He was the son of Thomas Howard, 1st Viscount Howard of Bindon, youngest son of Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk. He was described by Lloyd as 'very spiteful and a cauldron of misdirected energy'.
The Battle of Worksop was a skirmish during the Wars of the Roses, near the town of Worksop, Nottinghamshire on 16 December 1460, part of the campaign which led to the Battle of Wakefield on 30 December.
Shireoaks Hall is a grade II* listed 17th-century country house in the hamlet of Shireoaks, 2+1⁄4 miles (3.6 km) north-west of Worksop, Nottinghamshire, UK.
Thomas Fowler was an English lawyer, diplomat, courtier, spy, servant of the Countess of Lennox, broker of the marriage of Mary, Queen of Scots and Lord Darnley, steward of the Earl of Leicester, advisor to James VI of Scotland and the Scottish ambassador in London, Archibald Douglas.
George Bowes was an English prospector. He mined for gold in Scotland.
John Elphinstone of Selmes and Baberton (1553-1614) was a Scottish landowner and courtier.
Sir Charles Cavendish was an English landowner. He was a son of Bess of Hardwick and William Cavendish (1505–1557).
Nicholas Williamson was an English lawyer and Catholic recusant in the 1590s. He was arrested in 1595 after planning a visit to the court of James VI of Scotland. The Jesuit William Crichton had hoped that Williamson would encourage the ambition of James VI for the throne of England.