Brooksby Hall

Brooksby Hall is a late–16th-century manor house on 3.2 square kilometres (800 acres) of land between Leicester and Melton Mowbray. Situated 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) northeast of Leicester, the hall and the neighbouring church of St Michael and All Angels are the last remnants of the medieval village of Brooksby, which was founded during the period of the Danelaw in the 9th century AD. In the 15th and 16th centuries Brooksby was depopulated by enclosures carried out by the estate's owners, which turned its cultivated land into sheep pastures in order to profit from a boom in wool.

A 31-acre garden adjoins the hall, leading down to the River Wreake and the railway line from Leicester to Peterborough. The hall, which is Grade II* listed, was occupied for centuries by the Villiers family and later by Admiral David Beatty, the British commander at the Battle of Jutland in 1916. It is now part of the Brooksby Melton College and is also used as a wedding and conference venue.

A manor house has probably stood at Brooksby since at least the 13th century, but the core of the present hall dates to the Jacobean era in the late 16th century. It was extensively remodelled in 1890–91, and further changes were made in 1911. After it became an agricultural college in 1951, a set of college and residential buildings were constructed next to the hall. Further teaching blocks and a hostel were constructed in 1970–72, on the site of the hall's old coach house.

Brooksby Hall is built on an H-shaped plan. It was constructed from coursed squared ironstone dressed with limestone, with roofs covered with Swithland slate. The building's main front faces south, away from the river, with a facade that has five bays and one and a half storeys faced with sash windows and a parapet with crenelations. The 1890–91 extension on the east side of the original part of the hall mimics the same style but adds a series of tall chimney stacks and mullioned windows in the gables. The hall-cum-drawing room was redesigned by Lutyens in 1911 in an imitation early Georgian style, with enriched panelling and an overmantel with a pediment. Elsewhere in the house, some of the panelling is said to have come from Admiral Beatty's flagship.

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