Ruddington Hall is a

country house image:Blenheim - Blenheim Palace - 20210417125239.jpg, 300px, Blenheim Palace - Oxfordshire An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a Townhou ...

standing in the grounds of a garden in

Ruddington Ruddington () is a large village in the Borough of Rushcliffe in Nottinghamshire, England. The village is south of Nottingham and northwest of Loughborough. It had a population of 6,441 at the United Kingdom census, 2001, 2001 Census, increas ...

Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated ''Notts.'') is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. The county is bordered by South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. Th ...

, England. Ruddington Hall has been included in the art work of

Nikolaus Pevsner Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (195 ...

alongside the Elizabethan

Wollaton Hall Wollaton Hall is an Elizabethan country house of the 1580s standing on a small but prominent hill in Wollaton Park, Nottingham, England. The house is now Nottingham Natural History Museum, with Nottingham Industrial Museum in the outbuilding ...

and

Newstead Abbey Newstead Abbey, in Nottinghamshire, England, was formerly an Augustinian priory. Converted to a domestic home following the Dissolution of the Monasteries, it is now best known as the ancestral home of Lord Byron. The Abbey is on the national ...

, ancestral home of

Lord Byron George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824) was an English poet. He is one of the major figures of the Romantic movement, and is regarded as being among the greatest poets of the United Kingdom. Among his best-kno ...

. Pevsner described it as having a classical ethic of "calm grandeur, and monumental simplicity".

History

Ruddington Hall was built in 1860, on the lower slopes of a wooded hill. It was designed as a country retreat for Thomas Cross, a wealthy industrialist and banker from

Bolton Bolton ( , locally ) is a town in Greater Manchester in England. In the foothills of the West Pennine Moors, Bolton is between Manchester, Blackburn, Wigan, Bury, Greater Manchester, Bury and Salford. It is surrounded by several towns and vill ...

. Together with his wife and some nine servants, he lived there for 19 years. Ruddington was a centre for the production of the world-famous Nottingham lace, and in 1880 the hall was purchased by a successful American merchant, Philo Laos Mills. Mills was appointed

High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire This is a list of the High Sheriffs of the English county of Nottinghamshire. The High Sheriff is the oldest secular office under the Crown. Formerly the High Sheriff was the principal law enforcement officer in the county but over the centu ...

in 1897. He died in 1905, aged seventy-three. The tradition of ownership by self-made men was continued in 1907 by a Major John Ashworth. As well as developing a flourishing timber importing business, Ashworth, Kirk & Co. Ltd, he was renowned as one of the finest riflemen in the country. Under Ashworth's ownership, the hall's boiler and fireplaces burnt each quarter thirty tons of coal. In 1931, Ruddington Hall was purchased by Dorothea Kate Forman-Hardy, a member of Nottingham's newspaper and printing dynasty. In 1938, she added a major new extension to the rear, and in September 1940 offered the hall to the

Red Cross The organized International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a Humanitarianism, humanitarian movement with approximately 16million volunteering, volunteers, members, and staff worldwide. It was founded to protect human life and health, to ...

for use as a wartime convalescent hospital. It accommodated seventy-five patients. The hall continued as a hospital after the war, and in 1980 was purchased and converted into office premises. It was owned by

British Gypsum BPB Ltd (formerly BPB plc) (British Plaster Board) was a British building materials business. It once was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. In 2005, the company was purchased by Saint-Gobain of France. The company's subsidiary British Gypsum ...

until 1991. In 1992, Ruddington Hall was acquired by MHR, a HR and

payroll A payroll is a list of employment, employees of a company who are entitled to receive compensation as well as other work benefits, as well as the amounts that each should obtain. Along with the amounts that each employee should receive for time ...

software and services company. Since 1992, further restoration work has been carried out, including ceilings, stone floors, and leaded windows. Outside the hall, iron gates and rail have been replaced, drainage improved, many new trees and shrubs planted, and old topiary and paths restored.

External links

References

{{reflist Country houses in Nottinghamshire Ruddington