Barlow Woodseats Hall

Barlow Woodseats Hall is a Grade II* listedmanor house situated at Barlow Woodseats, on the edge of the village of Barlow, in Derbyshire. It remains the only manor house in the Parish of Barlow, and the current house dates from the early 17th century, although there are much earlier origins to before 1269.

Manorial tenure began with Ascoit Musard in 1086 and ownership passed through members of several families including the Earl of Shrewsbury from 1593. The present hall dates from the 17th century but there has been a house here from at least 1269 when it was called Barlew Woodsets meaning ‘a house in the wood belonging to Barley’. The deeds dated June 1368 and later dates refer to Barley Wodesetes.

It is also believed to be once occupied by one of Derbyshire’s best-known daughters Bess of Hardwick who married the owner of the Hall; he subsequently died in 1544. This was the first of her four husbands even though she was only 14.

The main house was built by local yeoman Arthur Mower, and it is believed this was around the time he married in 1620. Arthur Mower was appointed Agent to George Barley, Lord of the Manor in Barlow in 1563, then on George's death in 1568 to his son Peter Barley. Mower died in 1652 but several generations of his family occupied the house in subsequent years.

The manor of Barlow was held, with Staveley, by the Musards; it was afterwards in the ancient family of Abitot, a branch of which, on settling here, is supposed to have taken their name from the place. The family of Barlow, or Barley, possessed it for several generations.

James Barley, Esq., sold it in 1593, to George Earl of Shrewsbury; the Earl of Newcastle purchased it from the Shrewsbury family in the reign of James I or Charles I. Having passed by descent to the Duke of Portland, it was in 1813 exchanged with the Duke of Rutland for the manor of Whitwell.

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