Dovecliff Hall

Dovecliff Hall (alternatively known as Dove Cliff Hall or Dovecliffe Hall) is a large Georgian country house in Stretton, East Staffordshire, England which is now a country house hotel. It is a Grade II listed building.

The house is built in two storeys of red brick with a hipped Westmorland slate roof. It has a 5 window frontage.

The house was built in the 1790s on a 40-acre site at Dove Cliff, by the side of the River Dove, for Thomas Thornewill, a forge-owner from Stretton. It was inherited by his son Edward, whose widow lived there until her death in 1880. The following year Edward's son sold the estate, together with the Stretton iron-works, to William Joseph Smith of Alvaston, Derbyshire. Smith's widow sold the estate in 1897 to Hugh Spencer Charrington, a Burton-on-Trent brewer, who was already the tenant.

The house passed into the Bass family when Caroline, the daughter of Lord Bass, another well-known Burton brewer, married into the Charrington family at the same time that the Bass and Charrington breweries merged. Hugh Charrington died in 1921 and thereafter the house was either empty, tenanted or functioning as an hotel until it was purchased as a private house by a Colonel Sharpe in 1936.

In 1987 it was again converted to an Hotel. Now known as the Dovecliff Hall Hotel, the property is owned by the family business of Abbot Grange Ltd, headed by Tony Sachdev and Gogi Singh.

Thomas Thornewill (1760-1843) built Dovecliff Hall in about 1790 shortly after he was married. Thomas was the son of Thomas Thornewill (1719-1786) who owned a spade factory in Burton upon Trent and had converted a ruined corn mill near Stretton into a forge for hammering and plating iron. Thomas inherited this business in 1786 when his father died. Two years later in 1788 he married Mary Harvey in Birmingham.

Thomas expanded the business further and became a company called Thornewill and Co., iron masters. His wife Mary died in 1805. In 1830 he commissioned an engraver to draw a picture of Dovecliff which is shown. Thomas died in 1843 and his son Edward inherited Dovecliff and the family iron company.

Edward Thornewill (1801-1866) was born in 1801 at Dovecliff. In 1829 he married Mary Pearson (1801-1880) who was the daughter of clergyman Rev John Batteridge Pearson. The couple had nine children and two of their daughters were friends of King Edward VII. Harriet Georgina married Michael Arthur Bass and subsequently became Lord and Lady Burton. The King visited the Bass Brewery and the family on their estate at Rangemore in 1902, thus beginning the brewing of the now famous King’s Ale. One of their other daughters Jane Thornewill was a very good bridge player and was the King’s partner in numerous games of bridge. She was also a member of the King’s special group of friends called “the Marlborough House Set”. Edward died in 1866 and his wife Mary continued to live in the house until her death in 1880. After this the house was sold and was bought by William Joseph Smith.

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