Brereton Hall

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Front facade of Brereton Hall

Brereton Hall is a country house north of the village Brereton Green in the English administrative unit Cheshire East . English Heritage has listed it as a Grade I Historic Building.

history

The lordship of Bretune is listed in the Domesday Book of 1086. The house dates from 1586; you can tell from the year that is carved over the entrance. The contract to build the house came from Sir William Brereton (1550-1631), who in 1624 was appointed Baron Brereton of Leighlin, Co. Carlow . A portrait of Sir William Brereton from 1579 with a cameo of Queen Elizabeth I on his hat is on display at the Detroit Institute of Arts . William Brereton, 3rd Baron Brereton , (1631–1679) was an excellent letter writer and co-founder of the Royal Society . His younger son Francis died unmarried in 1722, ending the male line of the Breretons.

The house fell to the Bracebridge family and appeared as Bracebridge Hall in Yorkshire in a historical novel by Washington Irving . In 1817 it was bought by a Manchester industrialist , John Howard . In 1829 he had Regency- style changes made inside and out . Further changes were made at the end of the 19th century. In the 20th century the country house was a boarding school for girls. After this closed its doors in July 1992, Brereton Hall was the retreat of a pop star who had a recording studio built in the Secret Annex. The country house has been a private residence since 2005 and is no longer open to the public.

architecture

Brereton Hall before 1829. You can see the lanterns that were later replaced by battlements .

The house is one of a variety of gleaming Elizabethan and Jacobean houses that were built primarily to represent the social rank of the builder. In England these houses are called Prodigy Houses . Brereton Hall was built from bricks with some stone facings. Originally the house had an E-shaped floor plan. The middle wing was later demolished and replaced by a greenhouse in the 19th century . The front wing has a lead roof, the other wings are covered with slate. The front wing consists of a basement and two additional floors and has an entrance with a turret in the middle. These octagonal tourelles are connected by a bridge and have battlements (until 1829 there were small domes on the turrets instead).

The coat of arms of Queen Elizabeth I can be found on a shield above the entrance . It is flanked by a Tudor rose and the portcullis of the Beauforts. Behind the entrance are the lower hall and a grand staircase that leads to the Long Gallery, which extends along the front facade of the house. It leads to the drawing room , which contains a frieze with almost 50 coats of arms and a mantelpiece with the emblem of the Breretons, a bear with a muzzle . Two fireplaces elsewhere in the house are carved in the manner of Sebastiano Serlio . The former study of the 2nd Lord Brereton is furnished with a richly carved alabaster fireplace.

Individual references and comments

  1. ↑ a b c Brereton Hall . Historic England. English Heritage. Retrieved August 19, 2016.
  2. ^ AL Moir: The Story of Brereton Hall, Cheshire . Chester.
  3. ^ Bernard Burke, A Genealogical History of the Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited, and Extinct Titles ... Entry: Brereton - Baron Brereton .
  4. ↑ Sir William Brereton, 1579. (No longer available online.) Detroit Institute of Arts, formerly the original ; Retrieved August 19, 2016 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.dia.org  
  5. ↑ Craig Thornber: Brereton. In: Cheshire Antiquities. 2005, accessed August 19, 2016 .
  6. ↑ a b c d e Marcus Binney: The Tudor show home. In: TimesOnline London. August 12, 2005, accessed August 19, 2016 .
  7. ↑ Brereton Hall was then offered for sale for £ 6.5 million.
  8. ^ Washington Irving (alias Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.): Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists. A medley . Revised edition. 1867.
  9. ↑ Irvings 'Bracebridge Hall' is a conglomerate of various houses of the English lower nobility from the 17th century.
  10. ^ Brereton Hall. Alsager.com, accessed on August 19, 2016 .

literature

  • Clare Hartwell, Matthew Hyde, Edward Hubbard, Nikolaus Pevsner: Cheshire. The Buildings of England. Yale University Press, New Haven / London 2011, ISBN 978-0-300-17043-6 , pp. 181-183.

Web links

Commons : Brereton Hall  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 53 ° 10 ′ 49.8 "  N , 2 ° 19 ′ 43.7"  W.