Apethorpe Hall

Apethorpe Hall in Apethorpe, Northamptonshire, England is a Grade I listed country house, dating back to the 15th century.

In its prime, the hall entertained much royalty, including Queen Elizabeth I and King James I. The hall had been empty for twenty years from the late 1970s and was becoming dangerously unsafe, with incipient damp and rot. When English Heritage started its "at risk" register in 1998, the hall was included on it.

In September 2004 the Hall was compulsorily purchased by the Government under section 47 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 (only the second time the Government has had to use these powers) and English Heritage has spent £4 million refurbishing it to make it waterproof; as of 2007 it is seeking a buyer willing to spend a further £4 million to complete the restoration.

After initial phase of the restoration was completed in the Summer of 2007 a buyer is being sought and the property has an asking price of in excess of £5 million. English Heritage have opened the house to the public on certain specified tour dates - ending in August 2008..

The building & manor

The house and manor originally belonged to Guy Wolston [circa 1491] and later passed to Wolston's son-in-law Thomas Empson. In 1515 they were purchased by a London grocer, Henry Keble, whose grandson was Lord Mountjoy, who sold them to King Henry VIII.

Subsequently the property passed to Sir Walter Mildmay the Chancellor of the Exchequer and thence to his grandson-in-law, Sir Francis Fane (1617), who later became the Earl of Westmorland - it remained in this family until 1904, when it was purchased by (the later) Lord Brassey of Apethorpe.

The house is built around three courtyards lying on an east-west axis and is approximately convert|120|ft|m by convert|240|ft|m in area.

From the windows on the east side of the hall, Sir Walter Mildmay, who was then the Chancellor of the Exchequer, watched the procession announcing the arrival at the house of Elizabeth I. Apethorpe was one of the queen's favourite overnight stops on the Great North Road. The queen, James I and later Charles I between them made some thirteen visits to the house, which is still acknowledged one of the finest Jacobean houses in England.

After World War II much of the adjoining parkland was sold and the house became an approved school before falling into disrepair. In 1982, the school closed down and in 1983 the building was sold to a Libyan businessman, Wanis Mohamed Burweila.

Burweila left the building vacant leading to its deterioration; this in turn lead to him, in 2001, being served a Statutory Repairs Notice, which is an order from the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, requiring him to undertake certain urgent works to ensure the future of the building. In order to avoid doing this, Burweila sold the property to a developer called Kestral Armana Ltd, (subsequently renamed Apethorpe Country Estate Ltd (ACEL)).

Film location

The house has been used for filming scenes in "Another Country" and "Porterhouse Blue".

ources

*Pevsner, Nikolaus, "The Buildings of England – Northamptonshire". ISBN 0-300-09632-1
*English Heritage.
*BBC Radio Northampton - 6 March 2007
*BBC Look East - 5 March 2007 + 18 June 2007
*"Northampton Evening Telegraph" - 22 March, 2007

Further Reading

*Pete Smith in "English Heritage Historical Review", vol. 2, 2007 ("The Palladian Palace at Apethorpe", ppps. 84-105).
*Jennifer S. Alexander & Kathryn A. Morrison in "Architectural History", vol. 50, 2007 ("Apethorpe Hall and the workshop of Thomas Thorpe, mason of King's Cliffe: a study in masons' marks", ppps. 59-94).

External links

* [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/main.jhtml?xml=/property/2006/09/30/papethorpe30.xml Daily Telegraph article on the purchase]
* [http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/server/show/nav.10931 English Heritage pages on the house and its conservation]