Wingfield Manor

Wingfield Manor is a deserted (since the 1770s) and ruined manor house some 4 miles from the town of Alfreton in the English county of Derbyshire. There is a working farm that forms part of the old manor.

It is now in the care of English Heritage, though only viewable through pre-booked guided tours one Saturday a month during the summer.

Wingfield Manor was built around 1450 for Ralph de Cromwell, 3rd Baron Cromwell, then Chancellor of England, on the site of a 12th-century castle and was bought by the second Earl of Shrewsbury. The design was the inspiration for Hampton Court Palace in London.

The sixth Earl of Shrewsbury was entrusted with the care of Mary, Queen of Scots, when she was detained from 1569 onwards, in his various houses around Derbyshire, Wingfield among them. It may have been here that she met Anthony Babington, whose family lived at Dethick nearby, who organised the abortive Babington Plot, a Recusant Catholic plot against Elizabeth I. The walnut tree in the north courtyard is reputed to have grown from a seed left when Anthony Babington smeared walnut juice over his face to disguise himself and enter the castle to see Mary, Queen of Scots. Unfortunately, the tree is not old enough for this story to be true.

At the time of the English Civil War (1642–48), the manor was in the hands of the Earl of Shrewsbury, a Parliament supporter. The Manor was taken by the Royalists in 1643 and then, after a siege, retaken by Parliament in 1644. It was located in what was then a strategic position near a main north-south artery of the country. It was partially demolished at the end of the Civil War, and then renovated some years later for Immanuel Halton, an astronomer. It was later further damaged when stone was taken for building Wingfield Hall, in the valley below.

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