Donnington 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 the Elder.
It passed in 1826 to the young George, a foxhunting addict who kept his own pack of hounds at the hall in purpose-built kennels. George died an early death in 1844 at the age of 35 and was succeeded by his 12 year old eldest son, Paulyn, who himself died in Ireland only six years later. Paulyn was succeeded in turn by his younger brother Lord Henry Weysford Charles Plantagenet Rawdon-Hastings, later 4th Marquess of Hastings and 9th Earl of Loudon. Harry was a profligate gambler and spent the family's fortune and on his own early death in 1868 left the hall in the failing care of his sister Edith Maud and her husband Charles Clifton, later Baron Donington and afterwards his two sons, the 2nd and 3rd Barons. In 1901 it was sold to Frederick Gratton, son of Lord Gratton of Stapleford Park.
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.
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