Barrells Hall

Barrells Hall is a stately home in the Warwickshire countryside near Henley-in-Arden. The nearest village is Ullenhall, which for many years was the estate village, large parts of it having been built by the owners of Barrells Hall, the Newtons of Glencripesdale Estate. An adjacent house named Barrells Park was built in about 1950 on part of the Barrells estate.

The earliest mention of Barrels (as it was spelled at that time) was a reference to a Richard Barel in 1405. In 1554 the estate was purchased by Robert Knight of Beoley and remained in the Knight family until 1856. An inventory taken in 1652 shows that it was an ordinary farmhouse, though a Knight appeared in the 1682 visitation of Warwick. When Henrietta St John was banished to Barrells in 1736 (see below) it was still much the same and in very bad condition. On Henrietta’s death her husband, then Lord Catherlough, rebuilt large parts of it.

When Catherlough’s son married in 1791 he commissioned the noted Italian architect Joseph Bonomi the Elder to build an imposing extension, which became the main house at this time.

The Newtons, a wealthy local family bought the Barrells Park estate in 1856, and soon after enlarged the property again, adding a servants wing, Winter Garden entrance and various other features.

The house was the victim of a serious fire in March 1935. It slowly fell into ruin over the next 65 years, before being extensively restored in 2006.

As mentioned above, the Knight family first established themselves at Barrells in 1554.

Robert Knight (1675–1744) became notorious as the cashier of the South Sea Company responsible for the “South Sea Bubble” and absconded to France with a fortune. He built Luxborough House in Chigwell, Essex and never lived at Barrells. His son, also named Robert Knight (1702–1772), became successively Baron Luxborough, Viscount Barrells and Earl of Catherlough. He purchased Barrells from a cousin in 1730. He banished his wife Henrietta St John to Barrells in 1736 as punishment for an indiscretion. As Henrietta, Lady Luxborough, she was one of the first to establish a ferme ornée and is credited with the invention of the word “shrubbery”. Her friends, a group of poets, became known as the Warwickshire Coterie. His only daughter Henrietta married firstly Charles Wymondfold, secondly Hon. Josiah Tylney, an officer in the Royal Navy, younger son of Richard Child, 1st Earl Tylney.

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