Hanbury Hall
| Hanbury Hall | |
| stately home | |
 |
|
| Country | England |
|---|---|
| Region | Midlands |
| District | Worcestershire |
| Municipality | Worcester |
| Founded | 1701 |
| Owner | in the care of the National Trust |
| Visitation | accessible to the public with a fee (All year round) |
| Website: www.nationaltrust.org.uk | |
Hanbury Hall is a large stately home, built in the early 18th century, standing in parkland at Hanbury, Worcestershire.
The main range has two storeys and is built of red brick in the Queen Anne style. It is a Grade I listed building. The associated Orangery and Long Gallery pavilion ranges are listed Grade II*.
Hanbury Hall was built by the wealthy chancery lawyer Thomas Vernon in the early 18th century. Thomas Vernon was the great grandson of the first Vernon to come to Hanbury, Worcestershire, Rev Richard Vernon (1549–1628). Rev Richard and his descendants slowly accumulated land in Hanbury, including the manor, bought by Edward Vernon in 1630, but it was Thomas through his successful legal practice who added most to estates, which amounted to nearly 8,000 acres (32 km2) in his successor Bowater Vernon’s day.
Hanbury Hall is thought to stand on the site of the previous mansion, Spernall Hall, and Thomas Vernon first describes himself as ‘of Hanbury Hall’ in 1706, and this and other evidence leads to a likely completion date of about 1706. The date of 1701 above the front door is thought to be a Victorian embellishment, but no building accounts are known to exist.
Although Hanbury Hall appears to be of a very uniform style, the rear wall is clearly of a different and rather earlier style, and may mark the first phase of a building campaign when Thomas Vernon and his wife Mary first came into possession of Spernall Hall in 1692 when his bachelor uncle John Vernon died.
A notable feature of Hanbury Hall is the painting of the staircase, hall ceiling, and other rooms by the English painter Sir James Thornhill. They include a small representation of Rev Henry Sacheverell being cast to the furies – this relates to an incident in 1710 when Sacheverell, a Tory, was put on trial for sedition by the Whig government, and dates the paintings to that year. The focus of the paintings around the stairwell is the life of the Greek hero Achilles, as told by a range of classical sources. They are surmounted by a large representation of the Olympian gods on the ceiling.
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Wikipedia