Tag Archives: LINCOLNSHIRE

LINCOLNSHIRE

HAINTON HALL

A house that has changed significantly as the result of two fires within five years and the need to downsize.

Hainton Hall has been in the Heneage family for some four centuries or so. The mansion has undergone many accidents and alterations, with contributions from architects Peter Atkinson, William Burn and James Hemmings. Image: Market Raisen Mail.

Hainton Hall stands on the Lincolnshire Wolds between Lincoln and Louth, and about seven miles south-west of Market Rasen. The mansion we see today looks very different to the one that stood here one hundred years ago. It was a large and handsome mansion standing in a well-wooded park of 145 acres, and the seat of the Heneage family since the reign of Henry III.

The hall was built in 1638 with later additions, and a rebuilding and raising of the west wing, and the facing of the whole house in stucco, by Peter Atkinson in 1809. A porch was added by William Burn in 1875.

However, a series of events in the first part of the twentieth century means that its modern appearance looks remarkably different.

In June 1919, a fire broke out at Hainton Hall, where Edward Heneage, 1st Baron Heneage (1840-1922) had just recovered from an illness that had lasted two months. He and Lady Eleanor Heneage, as well as a full complement of domestic staff, were in residence when the blaze was discovered.

The fire occurred on the afternoon of Sunday 8 June and the estate fire brigade had started tackling the flames before summoning fire brigades from Lincoln, Wragby and Grimsby. As was often the case the firemen were faced with the difficult task of securing ample water supplies, the only immediate source being from a small fishpond on the estate.

The firemen made strenuous efforts to overtake the already serious advance made by the fire, but the flames had made such headway that one wing of the mansion was very soon destroyed.

All available help was used to rescue furniture and valuables from inside, and these were carried out onto the lawn.

The fire was eventually brought under control around midnight. The firemen had successfully saved the south and west fronts, but the east wing, consisting of the servants’ quarters, had been lost.

It was later thought that a carelessly thrown peace celebration firework was responsible for the fire.

Although there were no casualties amongst its residents, a Grimsby fireman, Albert Barrcroft, was killed when he was pinned beneath half a ton of falling debris, and one of his colleagues, William Watkins, injured by the fire.

A brave fireman who died while tackling the fire at Hainton Hall in 1919. Image: Tony Emptage.

In the aftermath, Lord Heneage contributed £500 towards the support of the dead fireman’s widow and children, the Grimsby Fire Brigade Committee stating that £1,100 was available to the dependants. As a sequel to the fire, it later decided to insure its firemen against fatal accidents .

A view of the crowd at the Conservative Rally at Hainton Hall in July 1927. It appears that the house had been restored after a second fire a few years earlier. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.

Lord Heneage died in 1922, and by remarkable misfortune the mansion was to catch fire again in July 1924.

The outbreak was discovered in a suite of bedrooms by a maid-servant, probably caused by fused electrical wiring, and the estate fire appliances (that had been brought up to date since the fire of 1919) set to work. Unfortunately, they were inadequate to cope with the flames, and by the time the Lincoln Fire Brigade arrived an hour later the building was once again a mass of flames.

On this occasion, the new Lord Heneage, George Edward Heneage (1866-1954), was away at the Lincolnshire Show, a guest of Lord Yarborough, and returned immediately.

People from all over the district, attracted by clouds of dense smoke, arrived to render assistance in once again rescuing priceless art treasures and antique furniture and piling them high on the lawn. Lord Heneage, accompanied by his cousin, Lieut-Col A.P. Heneage, superintended the collection of articles.

This low-quality image of the west front at Hainton Hall appeared shortly after the fire of 1924 and the removal of most of the debris. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.

The damage was reported to run at ‘something like’ £25,000, the whole of the principal rooms completely gutted, and the ceiling of the drawing-room destroyed by water. An attempt to remove valuable books from the library had been abandoned because the roof had started to fall in, and molten lead was dripping from above. Ironically, the books were later found to be undamaged. Even though the library itself was saturated, the heavily recessed bookcases had saved most of the collection.

The dining-room had escaped damage but not so the Adam ceiling in the drawing-room where cracks had appeared in the delicate white and gold traceries.

The great Conservative Rally at Hainton Hall, being addressed by the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, in July 1927. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.

The priceless collection of family portraits, going back to the sixteenth century, had suffered not so much from the fire itself, but as from moisture and the hasty way in which the pictures were carried to the lawn. Many were mottled by damp and others scratched or marked. A picture of Lord Heneage’s grandfather, presented by the tenantry in 1855, had a hole right through the canvas.

In a bizarre set of circumstances, sightseers flooded from all over the county to gain a glimpse of the hall, and for two days Lord Heneage threw the grounds open.

When the second Lord Heneage died in 1954 the estate passed to the nine-year-old James Neil Heneage from another branch of the family. During his minority the trustees demolished the east wing in 1956 and removed the top storey of the central block (even though it had been listed in 1952).  

In 1957 parts of the estate in Legsby, Barkwith, Torrington and Willingham were sold off largely to pay death duties.

Hainton Hall was reduced in size during the 1970s and its appearance significantly altered. Image: Parks and Gardens.

When James Heneage came of age and inherited the estate, he commissioned the architect W. H. Hemmings to rebalance the external appearance of the Hall, the work being completed in 1975. 

This photograph was taken in 1976. The top storey had been removed and the external appearance altered by W.H. Hemmings.
LINCOLNSHIRE

HARMSTON HALL

A significant country house re-emerges from obscurity, this prestigious Grade II* listed mansion stands in a parkland setting with far reaching views across the Trent and Witham Valleys.

Harmston Hall - 2018 - Savills (1)
Image: Savills.

A lot has been said about the views from Harmston Hall, on the Lincoln Cliff overlooking the River Witham. From its parkland, on a clear day, you can see the Derbyshire Hills, some 60 miles or so away. This spectacle is foremost in the estate agent’s selling brief, along with the floors – oak floors, oak floors inlaid with mahogany detailing, and lots of pine floors. Yes. A lot has been made about the wooden floors here.

The oddest thing is that outside the North Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, not many people have heard of Harmston Hall. The fact that it has re-emerged from obscurity is due to it being offered on the open market at Savills with a guide price of £3.45 million.

The land on which it stands once belonged to the Thorold family, resident here since 1456. The present Queen Anne house was started by Sir Charles Thorold (1655-1709), but it was his younger brother, Sir George Thorold who completed it in about 1710. The mansion became the summer retreat of the Lord Mayor of London, a man who acquired a baronetcy and distinguished title ten years later. Sir George added a tall north front to the house, but this was pulled down in 1892 when the family departed Harmston Hall for good.

The buyer was William Henry Morton, a farmer, magistrate and county alderman, who, in 1892, spent a considerable sum of money altering the house, employing Lincoln architects William Mortimer and his son, William Malkinson Mortimer, to carry out the designs. A new front was created in the same style as the original building, incorporating a new entrance and porch, surmounted by a tower. The roof was stripped of its tiles and recovered in green slate, while new windows were added to the upper storeys. Inside, all the rooms were completely renovated, but despite his extravagance, Morton only stayed at Harmston Hall for six years.

Harmston Hall - 2018 - Savills (2)
Image: Savills.

The estate was sold in 1898 to Nathaniel Clayton Cockburn, a grandson of Nathaniel Clayton, a Lincoln iron founder. Its new owner was a military man, a Major in the Imperial Yeomanry, who ended up serving in Palestine during World War One. Cockburn died in 1924 and its big rooms briefly became the domain of his sister.

The inevitability was that Harmston Hall was far too big and expensive to maintain. Therefore, it was no surprise when it was sold to the Lincolnshire Board for the Mentally Defective, who opened it as a ‘Colony for Mental Defectives’ in 1935… and consigned the country house to decades of bleak insignificance. Just imagine the despairing shrieks from the inmates echoing through those long corridors. This was a time when Britain wasn’t particularly good at dealing with mental health… many of its occupants probably shouldn’t have been there at all. The hospital was eventually absorbed into the National Health Service (NHS) and buildings spread across the parklands.

Harmston Hall Hospital later became an administrative block and closed for good in 1989.

As always happened, the abandoned hospital was left to decay – broken windows, leaking roof, rotten floors and ceilings – its former institutional use adding to the air of dereliction.

Harmston Hall - 2018 - Savills (8)
Image: Savills.

Its saviour was Peter Sowerby, a local property developer, who bought the estate in 1996. There were probably those who thought him mad enough to have been one of the hospital’s former residents. However, when Sowerby flattened the hospital outbuildings and built a new housing development, there appeared to be some wisdom attached to him after all. He doubled the population of Harmston and transformed the quiet village into an important commuter settlement for Lincoln.

Decisively, Harmston Hall itself was restored and turned back into a family home over a period of ten years. In 2008, it was on the market for £4.5 million, considerably more than the guide price being asked for today.

There are few signs of its former use. The house is entered through a panelled entrance lobby with stone flooring. This leads into a Reception Hall, complete with Rococo chimneypiece, Georgian fanlight doorways and Ionic columns in front of the staircase. The principal rooms include the main Drawing Room, along with a former Ballroom (complete with the oak flooring and inlaid mahogany detailing). The Dining Room and yellow Sitting Room all have original Queen Anne wooden panelling with pine and oak floors respectively. An ornate Billiards Room is embellished with mahogany panelling, carvings, huge mahogany doors along with decorative cornices, and, of course, more oak flooring. Upstairs there are seven primary bedrooms.

Being a former Historic Formula 1 Champion, it is no surprise that Sowerby has also included garaging for 20 cars.  The big difference from its former existence as a country house is the addition of both an indoor and outdoor swimming pool.

The Grade II* listed house stands within 13-acres of land, including a terraced garden with those spectacular views, and a further 30-acres of former parkland available separately.

All images were taken in 2014.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

LINCOLNSHIRE

HUSSEY TOWER

Hussey Hall and Tower
House and Heritage features another guest post on the history of Hussey Tower – King Henry VIII’s embarrassment.

This post consists of research from 2008 onwards courtesy of Art History students at Eumemmerring College, Victoria, Australia.

Hussey Tower c.2015
Hussey Tower was built by Richard Benyington around 1460 and was later acquired by Sir John (later Lord) Hussey, a close friend of Henry VIII. With only this tower still visible, the rest of the large manor has been lost.

Hussey Tower, in Sleaford, Lincolnshire, was once an impressive manorial home including a great hall, servants’ quarters, kitchens, stables and a large gatehouse. The building dates from around 1450-60 and is one of the oldest brick buildings in Lincolnshire.

It was originally built for Richard Benyington, collector of customs and excise in Boston which was a very important port at that time.

The tower was constructed entirely of hand-made red brick produced using local clay.

Around the time of being knighted after the Battle of Blackheath in 1497, John Hussey (son of Sir William Hussey) acquired the Sleaford estate. Hussey held a number of important positions in the Household of Kings Henry VII and VIII. He would become the Chief Butler of England and was Chamberlain to Henry’s daughter, Princess (later Queen) Mary.

Lord Hussey was one of five people to carry the canopy over the infant Princess (later Queen Elizabeth I) at her baptism on 10th September, 1533.

In 1529, he was raised to the peerage as Lord Hussey, 1st Baron Hussey of Sleaford, and remained living at his Sleaford estate – complete with refurbished tower. Henry lodged there one night, and ‘held a court’ next morning; the monarch was heading towards York to meet the King of Scotland.

Hussey Tower in 1815
Hussey Tower as seen from this painting in 1815. It is an important surviving example of a late medieval tower house, and of early brick building in Lincolnshire.

The tower later passed into the ownership of England’s Boston Corporation where little care was taken of it. Today it is a popular tourist attraction. Hussey’s legacy also lives on in the ‘American Wing’ at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The Bachiler-Hussey joined armchair (c.1650-1700) is a remarkable piece of early American carved furniture which has elements of Hussey’s coat-of-arms: “Ermine motifs are repeated along its back and are interspersed with elements of his father-in-law’s Bachiler heraldry; the interplay of semicircles representing the sun rising from its base”.

Chair

Although his descendant’s chair survives, Lord Hussey’s story, like that of his dilapidated tower, is indeed a sad one, showing King Henry VIII at his worst.

Despite Lord Hussey’s closeness to Henry VIII, the Kings’s determination to break ties with Rome did not sit well with Lord Hussey – a staunch Catholic. Hussey and Henry fell out, with Hussey being accused of treason. Henry ordered his former confidante to be sent to the Tower of London and, tragically, beheaded in Lincolnshire in 1537.

Hussey Tower,
Off Skirbeck Road, Boston, Lincolnshire, PE21 6DA