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The Halifax Estates - Garrowby #46

...ms on the Garrowby Estate. Agriculture is at the heart of all the Estates owned by the Halifax family – Garrowby Farm currently has a high health herd of around 65 pedigree Limousin cows supported by a 140 cow commercial herd. The majority of this land is grassland, covering the parkland around Garrowby Hall and the area between Garrowby Park and Bugthorpe village. There is also a stud farm which was founded by Lord Halifax and his father in 1962 and a Garrowby Shoot. The grounds of Garrowby Hall Because it is a private home there are not many pictures of the hall. However, I found a Country Life article written in 1949 showing photos of the interior and...

Meet the Neighbours - Shugborough Hall #80

...The next house in this series is a mere half hour from Hoar Cross Hall and we often visited it during the summer months and later, when my children were born, we’d take them for a visit too!  Seated on the edge of Cannock Chase this elegant house was once a manor house owned by the Bishops of Lichfield, until the dissolution of the monasteries around 1540.  Later it came into the hands of the Anson family, who were ancestors of the Earls of Lichfield, and stayed there for three centuries.  William Anson’s grandson, also called William, demolished the manor house in 1693 and built a three storey building in the Neo-Classical style which forms the central p...

Change and the Country House #61

...Hoar Cross Hall was clearly a very different house in the Victorian era compared to today.  Like other country houses it has not been immune from the social and economic changes affecting all walks of life over the last hundred years. At the beginning of Queen Victoria’s reign in 1837 the local landowner with his country house and Estate was the focal point of the community, often dispensing law, charity and education.  The Estate would also provide employment for the local people and over fifty locals were employed on the Hoar Cross Estate in the house and grounds plus many more on Home Farm along with carpenters, electricians and plumbers to keep the esta...

Meet the Neighbours - Alton Towers #82

...When you say the name ‘Alton Towers’ most people in the UK will think of the theme park with spectacular rollercoaster rides.  It really has changed beyond all recognition to the days when I used to go there back in the 1970s.  In those days it was a lovely house set in beautiful grounds with a few fairground rides to one side of the car park!  Well, it still is a lovely place to visit but the rides have taken over now so that people only think of it as a theme park with fantastically themed hotels and an enchanted village! However, this Estate started life as an Iron Age Fort built on Bunbury Hill. Then later on in the 11th century, Alton Castle was bui...

Temple Newsam and the Meynells

...TEMPLE NEWSAM AND THE MEYNELLS:     On 11th August 1863, Hugo Francis Meynell Ingram married the Hon. Emily Charlotte, daughter of Sir Charles Wood, Bart, afterwards 1st Viscount Halifax.  The Woods were an old gentry family, for many centuries respectable York merchants.  They were to turn grand upon the discovery of coal beneath their ancestral Estates.  This was the great Barnsley field, with several hundred acres of Britain's deepest and finest coal.  Sir Charles Wood had a distinguished political career and they owned family seats at Garrowby, Pocklington, near York and Hickleton, near Doncaster.  They also owned a London house in Belgrave Square....

Temple Newsam and the Meynells #42

...TEMPLE NEWSAM AND THE MEYNELLS:     Following on from last week's blog about Emily Meynell Ingram's family background, this week I am delving into the family background of Emily's husband Hugo which explains how Emily came to own the Temple Newsam Estate after his death.   In 1782, Hugo's grandfather, Hugo Meynell of Quorndon, the 'father of fox hunting', married the Hon. Elizabeth Ingram Shepheard.  She was the daughter of Charles Ingram, 9th Viscount Irwin and Lord Ingram.  The family seat was Temple Newsam in Yorkshire and this was how the Meynell family became associated with this great house.  Through this marriage of Hugo and Elizabeth, the Meynel...