Donington Hall

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Donington Hall

Donington Hall is a country house with 4.5 square kilometers of the village of Castle Donington in the northwestern English county Leicestershire . The house near East Midlands Airport served as the headquarters of the British Midland International airline until it was absorbed by British Airways on October 28, 2012 .

history

The house was built in neo-Gothic style from around 1790 by the plasterer and draftsman William Wilkins for Francis Rawdon-Hastings, 2nd Earl of Moira , who was appointed Marquess of Hastings in 1816 . From 1902 the property belonged to the Gillies Shields family . The country house was requisitioned by the British government at the beginning of the First World War and converted into a prisoner of war camp. In 1915 the German naval aviator Gunther Plüschow was interned there and he managed the only successful escape of an enemy prisoner of war from the British Isles in both world wars.

Alderman John Gillies Shields , JP , the then owner of the property, allowed Fred Craner to hold motorsport events on the property's extensive streets in 1931 . This is how the Donington Park racetrack was created . The circuit was closed in 1939 because of the start of World War II and requisitioned by the United Kingdom Department of Defense as a depot and warehouse for military vehicles.

Since the entire property needed extensive renovations after the war, the family leased the land to be used by agriculture. They kept the country house, which was a refugee camp for Hungarians who fled to the Midlands after the Soviet army invaded Hungary in 1956 . In a letter to the Daily Telegraph, Gillies Shields and Joyce Pearce thanked everyone who donated clothes, books and toys for the children. They promised that once the immediate crisis was over they would transform Donington Hall into “a home and school for children of all nationalities who are now living hopelessly in displaced persons camps in Germany. Their parents were our allies, their suffering is caused by their loyalty to our cause. "

In 1971 Tom Wheatcroft bought part of the property, including the famous pre-war racing circuit, from the Shields family for £ 100,000.

In 1976 British Midland Airways bought the country house from the Shields family, renovated it and turned it into their headquarters. British Midland Airways moved into Donington Hall in 1982. The airline then renamed itself British Midland International (BMI) and in 2007 employed 800 people at Donington Hall.

In 2012, the International Airlines Group announced that it was laying off 1,200 BMI employees, mostly from BMI headquarters in Donington Hall. In March 2013, Norton Motorcycle Company bought Donington Hall from the International Airlines Group.

Individual references and comments

  1. ^ BMI (British Midlands International) website. Retrieved March 10, 2016. Registered office - Donington Hall Castle Donington Derby East Midlands DE74 2SB UK.
  2. ↑ Illustrated in: George Richardson: A New Vitruvius Britannicus . Volume II (1808). Plans 31-35.
  3. ↑ The year 1793 is above a door, see: Howard Colvin: A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects . 3rd edition 1995. One day: Wilkins, William .
  4. ↑ Not to be confused with the famous architect William Wilkins (1778–1839), who built the National Gallery in London . This was William Wilkins (1751-1815).
  5. ^ Castle Donington . Derbyshire Life.  ( 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. Accessed June 2009@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.derbyshirelife.co.uk  
  6. ^ Donington Park Trophy . kolumbus.fi. Retrieved March 10, 2016.
  7. ↑ Tom Wheatcroft, Christopher Hilton (editor): Hitler's GP in England . Haynes Publishing, 1999. ISBN 1-85960-630-X . P. 10.
  8. ↑ 1950s: REFUGEES STIR UP EMOTIONS . bygonederbyshire.co.uk. Archived from the original on September 27, 2008. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved January 13, 2009. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / bygonederbyshire.co.uk
  9. ↑ Track owner reveals secret summit with F1 boss Bernie . thisisderbyshire.co.uk. July 8, 2008. Retrieved March 10, 2016.
  10. ↑ Descendants of John (Shields) Shiels . Genealogy.com. Retrieved March 10, 2016.
  11. ↑ the eighties . British Midland International. ( Memento of the original of June 10, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved December 28, 2011. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.flybmi.com
  12. ↑ Struggling rival airline is snapped up by BMI . Europe Intelligence Wire. February 5, 2007. Retrieved January 22, 2010. "Bmi has 4229 staff, including 800 at its Donington Hall head office".
  13. ↑ BRITISH AIRWAYS ANNOUNCES CONSULTATION TO INTEGRATE BMI MAINLINE . ( Archive ) British Airways. Thursday April 12, 2012. Retrieved March 10, 2016.
  14. ^ Norton Motorcycles buys Donington Hall . Derby Telegraph, March 18, 2013. Retrieved March 10, 2016.

Web links

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

Coordinates: 52 ° 50 ′ 15.4 "  N , 1 ° 22 ′ 37.6"  W.