Great Barr Hall
Coordinates: 52 ° 33 '22.5 " N , 1 ° 55' 15.4" W.
The Great Barr Hall is a Grade II listed manor house in Great Barr, a northern district of Birmingham . Built in 1777 by the noble Scott family, it was part of a psychiatric hospital, St. Margereth's Hospital, after the First World War . After the site was closed in the late 1970s, the building fell into disrepair and has been rebuilt since 2005 as part of a site rededication. Along with Soho House, Great Barr Hall is the most important meeting place for the Lunar Society between 1790 and 1799.
The main house was built around 1777 in place of a building from around 1650 called the Nether House . The client was Joseph Scott (1752-1828), who had chosen Great Barr as a residence for himself and his family and who was now anxious to design the house and park appropriately. When Scott got into financial difficulties in 1788, however, he was forced to lease the property. A financially strong tenant found himself Samuel John Galton , an entrepreneur and banker of the early industrial revolution and a member of the Lunar Society . Due to its large number of rooms, the property also offered the opportunity to hold meetings of the scholars of the Lunar Society and, if necessary, to offer overnight accommodation. Between 1790 and 1799, Great Barr Hall became a popular meeting point for well-known people such as James Watt , Joseph Priestley , Josiah Wedgwood and William Murdoch .
In 1791, after the builder's death, the property fell to Sir Francis Scott, 3rd Baronet, who moved there after the lease had expired and died at Great Barr Hall in 1863. In 1840 and 1863 the original building was rebuilt according to a design by the well-known architect George Gilbert Scott and a very striking chapel was added, but it was never consecrated and served as a billiard room. After the death of Scott's widow (1909), the site was acquired by a hospital in 1911 and converted into an asylum for the mentally disturbed in 1918. The mansion was originally used for this purpose, but Great Barr Hall ceased to be used when the new asylum structures were completed. Although the mansion, which was already badly dilapidated at the time, was added to the list of listed buildings in 1971, it fell into disrepair after the hospital was closed in 1978. In the early 1990s, Great Barr Hall only consisted of the foundation walls and the clock tower. Only the associated landscape park was maintained and opened to the public.
In 1997, following a decision by the city's health commission, the site was sold to a private investor who wanted to demolish the old hospital buildings and build new housing developments over them. After some excitement among the townspeople, he was ordered not to tear down the ruins of the manor house, but to restore it. Great Barr Hall is therefore to be expanded with apartments. Construction work on the site of the former institution began in 2005. About a month before work began, the historic part of the ruins burned down due to arson and the clock tower had to be demolished due to the damage. Although for some time it looked as if the ruin would have to be torn down in its entirety, a large part of the outer walls could be preserved and the planned renovation carried out.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Mary Scott Blueprint, a proposal paper for rebuilding the site with outlines of historical significance; by a descendant of the builder. PDF in English.
- ^ Public report of the meeting of the city planning staff
- ↑ Page no longer available , search in web archives: Report of the planning staff to the city of Birmingham of June 17, 2004 (English) in the HTML version of Google
- ↑ Entry about the fire in Great Barr Hall on DerelictPlaces ( Memento of the original from October 30, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
