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 Hallon 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