Donington Hall
Donington Hall is a house and residential 1,100-acre (4.5 km2) estate in Castle Donington, North West Leicestershire, located close to the city of Derby. The hall served as the headquarters for the airline British Midland International until it was merged into British Airways on 28 October 2012. It is now the headquarters of the Norton Motorcycle Company.
The house was built from c 1790 for Francis Rawdon-Hastings, 2nd Earl of Moira, (created Marquess of Hastings in 1816) in a fanciful Gothic manner by the plasterer and draughtsman William Wilkins. From 1902 Donington was the property of the Gillies Shields family. The hall was requisitioned at the start of World War I by the British government and turned into a prisoner of war camp. While interned at Donington Hall in 1915, the German naval pilot Gunther Plüschow made the only successful escape from Britain in either World War.
In 1931, the then owner of the estate, Alderman John Gillies Shields, J.P., agreed to allow Fred Craner use of the extensive roads on the land for motor racing, thus creating the Donington Park circuit. The circuit at Donington Park was closed in 1939 due to World War II, when it was requisitioned by the Ministry of Defence and was converted into a military vehicle depot and storage area.
With the whole estate needing extensive renovations after the war, the family rented the estate out as farm land. They retained the Hall, which after the Soviet Army ensured a Communist regime in Hungary, became a refugee camp for those who came to the East Midlands. A letter to the Daily Telegraph from the Gillies Shields and Joyce Pearce thanked all those who were providing clothing, books and toys for the children, promising that once the immediate crisis was over, it was their intention to turn Donington Hall into “a home and school for children of all nationalities who now live without hope in the displaced persons camps in Germany, their parents were our allies, their sufferings caused through loyalty to our cause.”
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