Hoar Cross Hall

En un regard

Le château en bref

In the heart of the former Needwood Forest, Hoar Cross Hall is a large Victorian red-brick country house built from 1862 to 1871 by the architect Henry Clutton for Hugo Francis Meynell Ingram. Its composition of stepped gables, square towers capped with bulbous roofs and wide mullioned windows draws on the vocabulary of Jacobean houses. The site continues a long history of manorial occupation: a manor house existed here from the 15th century and was demolished in 1740, after which Hugo Meynell, a founding figure of fox hunting, established a hunting lodge here at the end of the 18th century. After the accidental death of his grandson in 1871, the latter's widow, Emily Meynell Ingram, devoted part of her fortune to the nearby Church of the Holy Angels, a masterpiece by G. F. Bodley. Remaining with the Meynells until the mid-20th century, the house went through several lives before becoming a spa hotel in 1991, now run under the Hiddenwell brand. Listed at Grade II, it belongs to the heritage of historic manor houses rather than to that of fortification.