A Short History of Staunton Harold Hall

The hamlet of Staunton Harold, a dozen houses in all, nestles in a corner of north west Leicestershire, close to the Derbyshire border. For five hundred years it was at the core of the Staunton Harold Estate, and the hall was home to the Shirley family, who became Earls Ferrers.

The Shirley family have had a long history, and several changes of fortune. Sir Robert Shirley, a Royalist, built the church in the hall grounds in defiance of Cromwell and died a prisoner in the Tower of London. With the restoration of the monarchy his son was made first a Baron and then an Earl. The 4th Earl murdered his steward in the Hall and was tried and condemned by his peers, becoming the last peer of the realm to be hanged. His brother, the 5th Earl, inheriting in 1760, restored the family fortunes and rebuilt the Hall much as we see it today. The 10th Earl inherited as a boy in 1859 and maintained a magnificent establishment until his death in 1912. He sold off three quarters of his estates and left his successor much impoverished. In 1954 the 12th Earl put the remaining estate up for auction, having first gifted the church to the National Trust.

The Hall and grounds were sold to a demolition company while several other lots failed to find a buyer. In 1955 Leonard Cheshire rescued the Hall and made it into a Cheshire Home while my father bought the three farms at the core of the estate. In 1980 the Cheshire Home moved to purpose built premises at nearby Netherseal, where it still flourishes, and the Hall became a Sue Ryder hospice. This closed in 2002 and the Hall and grounds were again put up for sale.

In 2003 Jacqueline and I bought the house by 'telephone auction' and set about turning it back into a family home again. In this we have been greatly helped by several members of our large family. Daughter Jayne and her husband Tony Cantril have taken a lease of the West Wing and converted it into managed offices and conference rooms. Daughter Caroline and her husband Andrew have moved into an apartment above the library with their two children, and brought the place to life in a way that two retirees could never have done alone.

The former stable block behind the hall was sold with the farms and in 1974 I began converting it into craft workshops and studios. Named the Ferrers Centre after the previous owners this has proved very successful and is now, we believe, the largest complex of its kind in the country. The walled gardens were sold to a nurseryman in the 1954 auction and have remained in separate ownership as a garden centre since then. Other buildings in the hamlet have been converted into houses and are now all privately owned.

Staunton Harold Hall is listed as Grade 1, while the gardens and grounds at Grade II are, with Coleorton Hall nearby, the most highly rated in the county. When I first knew Staunton Harold in the late 1940s it was in sad decline, the lawns overgrown, the rooves falling in. Private and unvisited, barely a dozen vehicles travelled down the rutted drives in a day. It was first the Cheshire Home and then the visiting public who saved it, and now it gives pleasure to tens of thousands of people every year.

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top - north view
middle - plan of house
bottom - south view

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