Bretby Hall

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Bretby Hall is a country house at Bretby, Derbyshire, England, north of Swadlincote and east of Burton upon Trent on the border with Staffordshire. It is a Grade II* listed building. The name "Bretby" means "dwelling place of Britons".

The first Bretby Hall was built in 1630 after Thomas Stanhope bought the manor of Bretby from the family of Stephen de Segrave, to whom it had been granted by Ranulph de Blondeville, 4th Earl of Chester.

In 1628, his grandson Philip was made Earl of Chesterfield by King Charles I of England. From then on, Bretby Hall was the ancestral home of the Earls of Chesterfield.

The second Earl was responsible for a complete restyling of the gardens so that some compared them favourably with the gardens at Versailles.

The fifth Earl demolished the mansion and built the present Hall to a design by Sir Jeffry Wyatville.

The sixth Earl, known as the "racing Earl", loved cricket and shooting, so he built a cricket pitch and raised game birds.

The seventh Earl died without issue, and the estate devolved to his mother and through her to the wife of the 5th Earl of Carnarvon, the famous egyptologist who discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun.

In 1926, the Hall was sold to Derbyshire County Council and was run as an orthopaedic hospital until the 1990s when it was sold to a private developer, who has converted it into luxury apartments and suites.

References

* [http://www.imagesofengland.org.uk/Details/Default.aspx?id=82806&mode=quick English Heritage: Images of England, architectural description]
* "A Visitation of the Seats and Arms of the Noblemen and Gentlemen of Great Britain and Ireland" Vol II Sir Bernard Burke (1855) p103. Google Books