HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Forty Hall is a manor house of the 1620s in Forty Hill in Enfield,
north London North London is the northern part of London, England, north of the River Thames and the City of London. It extends from Clerkenwell and Finsbury, on the edge of the City of London financial district, to Greater London's boundary with Hertfordshi ...
. The house, a
Grade I listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...
, is today used as a museum by the
London Borough of Enfield The London Borough of Enfield () is a London boroughs, London borough in Greater London, England. The main communities in the borough are Edmonton, London, Edmonton, Enfield, London, Enfield, Southgate, London, Southgate and Palmers Green. Enfi ...
. Within the grounds is the site of the former Tudor Elsyng Palace.


Location

Forty Hall is located in the north of the
London Borough of Enfield The London Borough of Enfield () is a London boroughs, London borough in Greater London, England. The main communities in the borough are Edmonton, London, Edmonton, Enfield, London, Enfield, Southgate, London, Southgate and Palmers Green. Enfi ...
, the northernmost borough of London. The hall and formal park are located on the top of Forty Hill, a level gravel plateau standing above the flood plain of the
River Lea The River Lea ( ) is in the East of England and Greater London. It originates in Bedfordshire, in the Chiltern Hills, and flows southeast through Hertfordshire, along the Essex border and into Greater London, to meet the River Thames at Bow Cr ...
to the east, and the valley of the Turkey Brook to the north and west. The park slopes down into the valley, where the remains of old ponds lie on the
London Clay The London Clay Formation is a Sediment#Shores and shallow seas, marine formation (geology), geological formation of Ypresian (early Eocene Epoch, c. 54-50 million years ago) age which outcrop, crops out in the southeast of England. The London C ...
. A loop in the former course of the New River forms the boundary of much of the estate, though this has since been re-routed to the east. To the north are Whitewebbs and Myddelton House. The road to the east was formerly the main route from Enfield to
Waltham Cross Waltham Cross is a town in the Borough of Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, England, located north of central London. In the south-eastern corner of Hertfordshire, it borders Cheshunt to the north, Waltham Abbey to the east, and Enfield to the sout ...
, but traffic has been re-routed via the A10.


History

The house was built between 1629 and 1632. It is generally said to have been built by Sir Nicholas Rainton, a wealthy London
haberdasher __NOTOC__ In British English, a haberdasher is a business or person who sells small articles for sewing, dressmaking and knitting, such as buttons, ribbons, and zippers; in the United States, the term refers instead to a men's clothing st ...
who was
Lord Mayor of London The Lord Mayor of London is the Mayors in England, mayor of the City of London, England, and the Leader of the council, leader of the City of London Corporation. Within the City, the Lord Mayor is accorded Order of precedence, precedence over a ...
from 1632 to 1633. However Tuff, writing in 1858, says that it was built by Sir Hugh Fortee and bought by Rainton, quoting a 1635 survey describing a copyhold house "some time Hugh Fortee's, and late Sir Thomas Gurney's". Lambert also gives Fortee as the origin of the name. The detailed history of the house has until recently been poorly understood, since it is known to have been built in the 1620s, but has the external appearance of an 18th-century house. A detailed examination was carried out for Enfield council as part of the Forty Hall Conservation Plan. This concluded that the house was probably not designed by a famous architect such as
Inigo Jones Inigo Jones (15 July 1573 – 21 June 1652) was an English architect who was the first significant Architecture of England, architect in England in the early modern era and the first to employ Vitruvius, Vitruvian rules of proportion and symmet ...
, but by a "clever artisan builder". The original square house was not altered much in the 17th century other than a small extension to the northwest in 1636. In 1640 Rainton was imprisoned for refusing to help Charles I raise a loan. He died in 1646 aged 77 and was buried at St Andrew's Church in Enfield. The hall then passed to his great-nephew, also Nicholas. He was able to extend the estate northwards by buying and demolishing the neighbouring Elsyng Palace in 1656. In 1696 the hall passed to John Wolstenholme (probably a descendant of the financier and merchant of the same name and member of the
Virginia Company The Virginia Company was an English trading company chartered by King James I on 10 April 1606 with the objective of colonizing the eastern coast of America. The coast was named Virginia, after Elizabeth I, and it stretched from present-day ...
), who carried out major refurbishment possibly following a fire, including construction of an extension to the south-west, and planted the avenue. In 1740 the house passed to Eliab Breton, who remodelled the ground floor. Later owners included Edmund Armstrong (1787) and James Meyer (1799), whose family built the nearby Jesus Church in 1835. In 1894 the hall was bought by Henry Carrington Bowles of the neighbouring Myddelton House for his son Major Henry Ferryman Bowles (1858–1943), MP for Enfield and later 1st Baronet Bowles. In 1897 there were further changes including enlargement of the southwest wing. In 1951 the Bowles family sold it to the
Municipal Borough of Enfield Enfield was a local government district in Middlesex, England from 1850 to 1965. History The parish of Enfield adopted the Public Health Act 1848 ( 11 & 12 Vict. c. 63) in 1850, and formed a local board of health of 12 members to govern the ...
, the predecessor of the
London Borough of Enfield The London Borough of Enfield () is a London boroughs, London borough in Greater London, England. The main communities in the borough are Edmonton, London, Edmonton, Enfield, London, Enfield, Southgate, London, Southgate and Palmers Green. Enfi ...
. It has since been used as a museum. The Hall closed to the public in late 2010 for a major redevelopment project funded by Enfield Council and the
Heritage Lottery Fund The National Lottery Heritage Fund, formerly the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), distributes a share of National Lottery funding, supporting a wide range of heritage projects across the United Kingdom. History The fund's predecessor bodies were ...
. Alterations included the restoration of the original position of the staircase. The Hall reopened on 30 June 2012.


The house and estate today

The Hall's permanent exhibition tells the story of the house and its estate throughout the ages and looks at the life and times of Sir Nicholas Rainton and life in the 17th century through a range of visual and audio interpretation and displays. There is also a range of guided tours, led by a Jacobean character. The exhibition programme focuses on art, ecology and heritage.


Grounds

The estate of around makes up part of the London
Metropolitan Green Belt The Metropolitan Green Belt is a statutory green belt around London, England. It comprises parts of Greater London, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Kent and Surrey, parts of two of the three districts of Bedfordshire and a s ...
. Around the house are formal gardens, a small lake and a magnificent Cedar of Lebanon, one of the Great Trees of London, and the county girth Champion for Greater London. The remainder includes a park that is open to the public and a farm. An avenue of trees runs down the hill from the house into the valley of the Turkey Brook, also known locally as Maidens Brook. The northern and much of the southern boundary are marked by the former course of the New River.


In popular culture

* It was the location for two episodes of
BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's oldest and flagship channel, and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television b ...
’s ''
Antiques Roadshow ''Antiques Roadshow'' is a British television programme broadcast by the BBC in which antiques appraisers travel to various regions of the United Kingdom (and occasionally in other countries) to appraise antiques brought in by local people ( ...
'' transmitted in January and March 2021 and another in July 2024.


References


Further reading

*


External links

*
Forty Hall & Estate
– official site
Forty Hall
on the VisitWoods website {{Museums of London history Enfield, London History of the London Borough of Enfield Grade I listed houses in London Grade I listed buildings in the London Borough of Enfield Grade I listed museum buildings History of Middlesex Museums with year of establishment missing Houses in the London Borough of Enfield Museums in the London Borough of Enfield Historic house museums in London Local museums in London Art museums and galleries in London Decorative arts museums in England Houses completed in 1632 Country houses in London 1632 establishments in England Middlesex