Image ID: 41972

Main Gates and Lodge to Stapleford Hall

(formerly Nottingham Road) Derby Road, Warren Avenue area
Stapleford
Nottinghamshire
England

Showing the gates, lodge and row of lime trees which lined the main drive up to Stapleford Hall. The hall was built in 1789 around a much older property and occupied land between the River Erewash and Derby Road (once called Nottingham Road). Old maps c 1890's show that the approach and lodge gates stood on Derby Road before Warren Avenue was built (roughly in the location where Rowell's haberdashery shop is today). Leonard Jacks' 1881 article on Stapleford Hall notes the following:- 'The manor has been successively owned by the Staplefords, the Tevereys, and at a later period by the celebrated Naval Admiral, Sir John Borlace (or Borlase) Warren, who during the American War of Independence, occupied the important post of Commander-in-Chief of his Majesty's ships on the North American station. At the close of that contest he returned to his country, and spent most of his time at Stapleford Hall, taking an active part in the magisterial business of the county and who represented the borough of Nottingham in Parliament from 1796 to 1806. His widow resided at Stapleford until her death. Lady Warren died, in 1839 and hall and estates have become the property of the Hon. William Vernon, second son of Lord Vernon, a minor, and the heir at law. George John Warren Vernon, 5th Baron Vernon (1803-1866), the only son of George Charles Vernon (1779-1835) of Sudbury, Derbyshire and Frances Maria, only daughter of Admiral Sir John Boralse-Warren, was born at Stapleford Hall, Nottinghamshire on 22 June 1803. George John Warren entered public life in 1831 as Member of Parliament for Derbyshire. After the passing of the Reform Bill of which he was a supporter, the county was divided into two divisions and he became member for the southern part. He continued in the House of Commons until 1835 when he moved to the House of Lords on the death of his father. In 1837, he changed his ancestral name from Venables-Vernon to Warren in compliance with the will of Viscountess Bulkeley. The hall is 'presently occupied' (in 1881) by Colonel Wright Esq. It is a commodious mansion with a fine lawn and beautiful plantations. The grounds have been very much expanded by the present owner, Charles Ichabod Wright, best known as Colonel Wright, who has taken in large pieces of what was open field beyond the boundaries of the grounds, and placed them under the hands of his gardener. They are now part of the garden, and set with a very fine collection of shrubs, chiefly of the fir kind. Colonel Wright, I may mention, is a great admirer and a successful grower of coniferae, and has discovered that a ball shot straight from a small rifle will remove a superfluous 'leader' from the summits of the tall ones, which cannot well be reached by ordinary appliances. The other portions of the garden are planted with flowers, which seem to have been chosen for the brightness and beauty of their colours. There is a still brighter collection in the spacious copper-roofed and copper-framed conservatory attached to the house, and built, I believe, necessarily at great expense, by the late Lady Warren, who formerly lived here. A broad gravel terrace runs parallel with the house, and terminates at a small group of Scotch firs, which is immediately approached by a flight of grass steps. The Stapleford mansion itself does not represent any distinct type of architecture. It has been in all probability added to and altered by successive owners. One portion of it dates back many generations, and presents the solid conventionalism which certain architects of the sixteenth century observed. The inner walls of this part of the house are almost unnecessarily substantial, and the mullioned windows, through which light is still admitted into several of the rooms, furnish still further evidence of the antiquity of the building. The hall was demolished in 1935

Date: c 1900

Organisation Reference: NCCS001715

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