Just one of the many places 1st Wedding Cars will be visiting next year, a very romantic setting for your wedding - we can't wait .
Hassop Hall - A Short History
The recorded history of Hassop reaches back 900 years to the Domesday Book.
HETESOPE in the Book of Winchester: to give Domesday its correct
title - was the Manor and principal residence of the FOLJAMBES who
remained until the reign of Richard II(1377-1399). The infant heiress to
Hassop became a ward of the King. He sold her for 50 marks to Sir John
Leake, who speedily made one hundred percent profit by re-selling her at
a price of 100 marks to Sir William Plumpton, who wished to secure her
as a wife for his son. The matrix for England was still that increasing
power struggle between the Barons and the only real power was the
possession of land.
The Foljambe heiress was eleven months old when her covenant of
marriage was made, and her considerable dowry of Hassop with a dozen
other Lordships and moieties in twenty townships passed to the PLUMPTON
family.
At the close of the 15th century, they sold Hassop to Catherine,
widow of Stephen Eyre. From 1498 at the time of the purchase, the Eyre
family who were Roman Catholic and staunch Jacobeans moved into that
testing period of religious persecution. Throughout the reign of
Elizabeth I they suffered a great deal in consequence, emerging
steadfast. They were among those few Catholic families of the nobility
who did not switch sides as a temporary expedient.
The Civil War in 1643 was another time of trial for the family,
and Rowland Eyre turned his home into a Royalist garrison. It was the
scene of several skirmishes and after the Parliamentary victory, the
captured property was only redeemed at a cost of £21,000. Rowland's
father had dismantled much of the old Hall and replaced it with the
present one.
In 1814 Francis Eyre, a direct descendant of Stephen, succeeded to the title of Earl of Newburgh.
Born into an age when it was fashionable for Noblemen and their
sons to follow the Byronic grand tour of Europe, Francis left his mark
on the rapidly changing face of Britain with the unusual Catholic church
built 1816-1818 in the severest Classical Revival style, its front
resembling an Etruscan temple, the interior with a coved coffered
ceiling - it has an underground passage to the Hall. Improvements to
modernise the Hall and some alterations in the Neo-Classical mould were
carried out a few years later. The estate passed to Dorothy, sister of
Francis, in 1852, and a year afterwards to her widower, Colonel Charles
LESLIE.
The Hall bought from the Leslies in 1919 by Colonel H. K.
STEPHENSON (later Sir Henry Stephenson Bt) eventually became the home of
his son Sir Francis Bt and it was purchased by the present owner, Mr.
Thomas H. CHAPMAN, in 1975.
Hassop Hall is linked to only five families since the inventory of
Domesday Book, there are remarkably intact records with specific dating
of days and years.
Time has set Hassop as a tranquil backdrop to ages when a woman
was worthless except as her Lord's chattel, when it needed great courage
to hold fast to a faith, and when Civil War blighted this lovely
countryside. With the opening of a contemporary chapter there is, not
surprisingly, a determination to conserve and care for this outstanding
heritage. Endlessly interesting; bound up with history; a place with
many tales to tell; still a home - Hassop Hall is somewhere to find a
welcome.
www.hassophallhotel.co.uk
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