Wychnor Hall

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Wychnor Hall
The Levett Children . John, Theophilus and Frances Levett. Portrait of James Ward , Wychnor, Staffordshire, November 1811

Wychnor Hall (or Wychnor Park ) is a country house near Burton-upon-Trent in the English county of Staffordshire . The early 18th century house, listed by English Heritage as a Second Degree Historic Building, used to belong to the Levett family , descendants of Theophilus Levett , who was the steward of the town of Lichfield in the early 18th century .

The house has been converted into a country club .

history

The name Wychnor comes from Old English and means "village on a bank". The earliest known spelling was Hwiccenofre . Ofre was the Anglo-Saxon word for "edge" or "shore", Hwicce was a province that included the present-day counties of Gloucestershire , Worcestershire and part of Warwickshire . The inhabitants were called Hwiccas or Hwicii . It is thought that some of these people settled in Wychnor and thus gave their settlement the name.

King James I allegedly stayed in the country house in 1621 and 1624.

The current country house dates from the time of Queen Anne , but was extensively rebuilt and expanded in the mid-19th century.

There are a number of curious traditions associated with Wychnor, at least one of which is said to go back to Sir Philip de Somerville , who owned the Wychnor manor in 1338: a ham side was kept in the country house for anyone who could claim “a year and a Was married for days without quarreling or regret; and said that if he / she were still unmarried and wished to get married, he / she would choose the same spouse and not anyone else in the world. ”Since there were few couples who could rightly claim the ham side and Much time passed between these, the ham side was replaced by a wooden replica that hung in the country house for many centuries.

The Levett family

The mansion was the home of the Levett family (relatives of the Levett from Milford Hall ) for many years . The family came from Sussex and arrived from Cheshire , Staffordshire in the early 18th century . By marrying the Floyer family from Hints , the Levetts claim their descent from King Edward III. about his son Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence .

The family's fortunes came mainly from their coal mines in Staffordshire and Derbyshire, as well as from large land holdings and investments in companies owned by inventor Matthew Boulton during the early industrial revolution .

The Levetts also owned land in Edial and Curborough (inherited from their Babington ancestors) and elsewhere in Staffordshire.

Theophilus Levett was 1721-1746 steward (town clerk) of the town of Lichfield and his grandson of the same name town clerk and 1809 High Sheriff of Staffordshire . Theophilus Levett was named after Theophilus Hastings, 7th Earl of Huntingdon , whose wife, the Countess of Huntingdon, was Levett's godmother. Theophilus Levett died in 1839. His friend, General William Dyott , was aide-de-camp of King George III. , attended Levett's simple funeral at Wychnor Hall, noting that Levell "left great fortunes to his younger children with the exception of his son Arthur, to whom he bequeathed £ 4,000".

Theophilus Levett's son John Levett (landowner, investor and at times also member of the Lunar Society ) was a member of parliament for the constituency of Lichfield. He was also a good friend of Matthew Boulton, the early inventor and one of the earliest investors in Boulton's Soho Manufactory .

Another John Levett was High Sheriff of Staffordshire in 1846 .

Theophilus John Levett , grandson of the first Theophilus Levett, was a Member of Parliament for the constituency of Lichfield from 1880 to 1885.

John Levett Receiving Pheasant from Retriever on His Estate at Wychnor , James Ward, RA, 1812.

The family had a longstanding relationship with Samuel Johnson , whom the first Theophilus Levett counted among his friends and who lent him money, e.g. E.g. a £ 80 mortgage loan on Johnson's mother's house on January 31, 1739. Johnson wrote frequently to Levett, and later to Levett's son, John, asking for an extension of missed payment terms. Levett later brought the mortgage and other loans over to Johnson, who eventually paid them off in 1757.

Theophilus Levett also had a long-standing friendship with David Garrick , an English actor, playwright and friend of Samuel Johnson, who also worked in Lichfield.

Many of the Levett family of Wychnor Hall were graduates from the University of Oxford .

Wychnor Hall members of the Levett family married into other well-known families in the county over the centuries, forming different branches of the family. The Levett-Prinseps , descendants of the Levetts from Wychnor Hall z. B., formerly owned by Croxall Hall in Derbyshire. The Latin motto on the coat of arms of the Levett- Prinseps family was Non Prodigus Neque Avarus (German: “Neither wasteful nor poor”).

The Levetts also had lodgings in Lichfield and various streets in the city are now named after them.

Later story

The Levett family owned Wychnor Hall until 1913, when it was sold to Colonel WE Harrison . He came from a family that owned mines around Cannock in the West Midlands. In 1976 the property was divided and the parcels were sold individually. The country house with a small piece of land passed through different hands and was converted into the Wychnor Park Country Club in 1981 .

Individual references and comments

  1. ^ Edith Harrison: The Story of Wychnor ... Written for the school children of Wychnor . 1934. pp. 9-10.
  2. ^ Samuel Lewis: A Topographical History of England . 1848. p. 564. British History Online . Retrieved January 13, 2017.
  3. ^ Alfred Williams, Walter Henry Mallett, F. Brown: Mansions and Country Seats of Staffordshire and Warwickshire . 1889 . Retrieved January 13, 2017.
  4. ^ John Murray: Handbook for Travelers in Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, and Staffordshire . London 1874. Retrieved January 13, 2017.
  5. ^ William White: History, Gazetteer, and Directory of Staffordshire and the City and County . 1834. Retrieved January 13, 2017.
  6. ↑ Wychnor . GENUKI. Retrieved January 13, 2017.
  7. ^ Sampson Erdeswicke: History of Wychnor, A Survey of Staffordshire: Containing the Antiquities of that County . 1820. Retrieved January 13, 2017.
  8. ^ Sampson Erdeswicke: A survey of Staffordshire . 1820. Retrieved January 13, 2017.
  9. ↑ Thomas Levett Prinsey Esq. . maximiliangenealogy.co.uk. Retrieved January 13, 2017.
  10. ↑ William Dyott: Dyott's diary, 1781-1845: a selection from the journal of William Dyott, sometime general in the British Army and aide-de-camp to His Majesty King George III . Retrieved January 13, 2017.
  11. ^ Sampson Erdeswicke, Thomas Harwood: A Survey of Staffordshire: Containing the Antiquities of That County . JB Nichols and Son. 1820. Retrieved January 16, 2017.
  12. ^ Levett land at Edial, Manors and Other Estates . In: A History of the County of Stafford . MW Greenslade (Editor), Victoria County History, 1990, British History Online. Retrieved January 16, 2017.
  13. ^ Photo of the 1766 letter from Erasmus Darwin to Matthew Boulton, which deals with Boulton's plan to dine with John Levett. RevolutionaryPlayers.org. ( Memento from August 8, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  14. ↑ James Dodsley: Annual Register , London 1846. Retrieved January 16, 2017.
  15. ^ JCD Clark: Samuel Johnson . Cambridge University Press. 1994. Retrieved January 16, 2017.
  16. ^ Pat Rogers: The Samuel Johnson Encyclopedia . Greenwood Publishing Company. 1996. Retrieved January 16, 2017.
  17. ↑ Lawyer Theophilus Levett adopted a generous, soothing tone in correspondence with Johnson, while Levett's son John appeared a little more enterprising and brisker, perhaps because he did not grow up with Johnson.
  18. ^ Alumni Oxonienses, The Members of the University of Oxford 1715–1886, Joseph Foster, James Parker & Co., Oxford, 1891 . Retrieved January 16, 2017.
  19. ^ Plantagenet Roll of the Blood Royal. The Isabel of Essex Volume, Marquis de Ruvigny and Raineval Staff, reprinted by Genealogical Publishing Company, 1994 . Retrieved January 16, 2017.
  20. ^ The William Salt Archaeological Society: Collections for a history of Staffordshire , Volume XIX. Harrison and Sons, London 1898 (accessed January 16, 2017).
  21. ^ Leslie Gilbert Pine: A Dictionary of mottoes . Retrieved January 16, 2017.
  22. ↑ St. John's House (later Yeomanry House) across from St. John's Hospital was built before 1732 for Theophilus Levett, who according to the Victoria County History of Staffordshire . 1721–1746 was a city employee. It replaced a house known as "Culstubbe Hall" in 1577, the home of the physiological research doctor Sir John Floyer (1649–1734) at the end of the 17th century. It was demolished in 1925.
  23. ↑ Wychnor Hall . lesleyscoffeestop.blogspot.com. Retrieved January 16, 2017.

Web links and literature

Coordinates: 52 ° 44 ′ 53.5 "  N , 1 ° 45 ′ 38.5"  W.