Branston Hall

Branston Hall is a country house in the village of Branston, Lincolnshire, England. The hall, a Grade II listed building, is set in 88 acres (3.56 square kilometres) of wooded parkland and lakes.

Originally commissioned as the family seat of the Melville family, the house became an RAF hospital during the Second World War, and then a sanatorium run by Lindsey County Council. It lay derelict in the 1970s and 1980s, underwent restoration and conversion into a retirement home in the late 1980s, and is now restored and converted into a hotel.

Designed by John Macvicar Anderson in 1885, the house was built in Elizabethan Revival style.

The original old hall was built in 1735 for Lord Vere Bertie (1712-1768) the son of the 1st Duke of Ancaster. He had married Anne Casey, who had inherited the Branston property from her father Sir Cecil Wray. The couple had four children. Lord Vere Bertie died in 1768 and his wife Anne continued to live at the house until her death in 1779. The property was then passed to their daughter Albinia who had married George Hobart, 3rd Earl of Buckinghamshire. In 1829 the house was advertised for sale and it seems that shortly after this it was purchased by Alexander Leslie Melville (1800-1881)

Alexander Leslie Melville (1800-1881) was born in 1800 in Scotland. His father was Alexander Leslie Melville, the 7th Earl of Leven. In 1825 he married Charlotte Smith, the daughter of Samuel Smith M.P, of Woodhall Park, Hertfordshire. The couple had twelve children.

Their eldest son was Alexander Samuel Leslie Melville (1829-1919) and he inherited Branston Hall when his father died in 1881. He was born in 1829 and in 1858 he married Albinia Frances Broderick, daughter of Charles Broderick, 6th Viscount Middleton. The couple had seven children.

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