Keele Hall
Keele Hall is a representative neo-Gothic building in Keele ( Staffordshire , England ), which belongs to the University of Keele and is used, among other things, as a conference and event center.
Geographical location
Keele Hall is located in the so-called Midlands , about halfway between Birmingham and Manchester , about one kilometer southeast of the village of Keele, on the campus of the University of Keele .
history
Keele Hall is the oldest building on the grounds of the University of Keele , a newer UK campus university. The university campus near the village of Keele had previously belonged to a manor that had been in the possession of the Order of Saint John and that had come to the English crown after this order was dissolved. It was sold together with the associated lands by the Court of Augmentation for £ 344 to Sir William Sneyd († 1571) in 1544 . The Sneyd family, originally from Cheshire and whose surname is of Saxon origin, had prospered from trading in coal and iron, and from making brickworks. The lineage of the Sneyd family branch in Staffordshire can be traced back to 1310. Around 1580 Ralph Sneyd , who had been sheriff of the county of Staffordshire three times , had a representative stone mansion built in the Tudor style on the site , which was the predecessor of Keele Hall. On February 29, 1643, the building was looted by order of parliament and / or a local authority; the manor was at the time a parcel of the Tutbury castellan .
Around 1851 the old mansion was replaced by a neo-Gothic building designed by the English architect Anthony Salvin (1799–1881). An extensive park with imposing ornamental shrubs adjoins Keele Hall. In the past, the park was also designed to be pleasing by artistic tree cutting. A particularly eye-catching feature of the park was a holly hedge about 180 meters long, ten meters high and eight meters wide .
In 1900, the Russian Grand Duke Mikhail Mikhailovich Romanov began renting Keele Hall. He had entered into an morganatic marriage , which meant that he was no longer allowed to return to Russia and had to live in exile in England, France and Germany for the rest of his life. During his stay in Keele, Staffordshire, he adopted the lifestyle of an English country gentleman; the City Council of Newcastle-under-Lyme recognized this by awarding him the title of Lord High Steward of the Borough .
During the Second World War , Keele Hall was requisitioned by the British Army and now housed military facilities. In 1948, the entire site was bought from another Ralph Sneyd with the help of donations in order to found the University College of North Staffordshire , which received university status in 1962 and was renamed The University of Keele . Today, Keele Hall also serves as a conference center; scientific conferences are held there.
References
literature
- JM Kolbert: The Sneyds & Keele Hall . University of Keele, 1967.
- JM Kolbert: The Sneyds Squires of Keele . Keele University, 1976, ISBN 9780900770616 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ John Burke and John Bernhard Burke: Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Landed Gentry in Great Britain & Ireland . Vol. II: M - Z , London 1847, pp. 1259–1260 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
- ↑ Walter Sneyd, Esq. In: The Gentleman's Magazine and Historical Chronicle (Sylvanus Urban, ed.), Vol. 99, 2nd Part (July to December, 1829), London 1829, pp. 83–85 ( limited preview in Google Book Search)
- ^ Sampson Erdeswicke and Thomas Harwood: A Survey of Staffordshire: Containing the Antiques of that County . Westminster 1820, p. 24, footnote 2 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
Coordinates: 52 ° 59 '59.3 " N , 2 ° 16'13.4" W.