Thornton Manor

En un regard

Le château en bref

Thornton Manor is the large Jacobethan-style mansion shaped by William Hesketh Lever, founder of Lever Brothers and later Viscount Leverhulme, in the heart of the Wirral peninsula. Originally a simple Victorian villa, the house was transformed over a quarter of a century into a vast red sandstone residence with an irregular plan, which served as the industrialist's main home and meeting place. Several architects followed one another in composing this ensemble: Douglas & Fordham of Chester, Grayson & Ould, J.J. Talbot and then J. Lomax-Simpson. Each room adopts a different historical style, from the Jacobean library to the Adam-style drawing room, while the double-height music room, with its barrel-vaulted ceiling and painted panels attributed to Cipriani, houses a Willis organ. A fernery, an open-air dining room and a bedroom open to the outside complete this unusual programme. Left almost unchanged since Lever's death in 1925, the house was sold in 2001 after the death of the 3rd Viscount. A private property, it now hosts weddings and events on its estate near the model village of Thornton Hough.