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Thornton Manor is a large
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 ...
in the village of Thornton Hough, Wirral, Merseyside, England. It is recorded in the
National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, ...
as a Grade II*
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 ...
. The house was built in the middle of the 19th century, and has been altered and extended in a number of phases since. From 1888 until the end of the 20th century, the house was occupied by the Viscounts Leverhulme.


History

The land on which the house stands was owned originally by the
Mostyn Mostyn is a village and Community (Wales), community in Flintshire, Wales, and Wards and electoral divisions of the United Kingdom, electoral ward lying on the estuary of the River Dee, Wales, River Dee, located near the town of Holywell, Flin ...
family of North Wales. The land was bought in 1849 by Charles William Potts, a solicitor. It is thought that he built the house, but there is no evidence that he lived there. In 1863 Potts sold the house and land to Thomas Brittain Forwood, a businessman who died in 1884. His son, Sir William Forwood, chairman of
Liverpool Overhead Railway The Liverpool Overhead Railway (known locally as the Dockers' Umbrella or Ovee) was an overhead railway in Liverpool that operated along the Liverpool Docks and opened in 1893 with lightweight electric multiple units. The railway had a number o ...
, let the house in 1888 to
William Lever William Hesketh Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme (; 19 September 1851 – 7 May 1925) was an English industrialist, philanthropist, and politician. Educated at a small private school until the age of nine, then at church schools, he joined his f ...
(later 1st Viscount Leverhulme), builder of the soap factory and
model village A model village is a mostly self-contained community, built from the late 18th century onwards by landowners and business magnates to house their workers. "Model" implies an ideal to which other developments could aspire. Although the villages ...
at
Port Sunlight Port Sunlight is a model village in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, Merseyside, England. It is located between Lower Bebington and New Ferry, on the Wirral Peninsula. Port Sunlight was built by Lever Brothers to accommodate workers in ...
.


Leverhulme era

Thornton Manor became the home of the Viscounts Leverhulme. William Lever bought the house in 1893 and lived there from 1888 until 1919, retaining ownership until his death in 1925. Lever started on a series of alterations and additions soon after his purchase. The architect Jonathan Simpson made some minor alterations, but the first major work was designed by the
Chester Chester is a cathedral city in Cheshire, England, on the River Dee, Wales, River Dee, close to the England–Wales border. With a built-up area population of 92,760 in 2021, it is the most populous settlement in the borough of Cheshire West an ...
firm Douglas and Fordham in about 1896. This constituted the main block of the house and was in
Elizabethan The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The Roman symbol of Britannia (a female per ...
style. In 1899, stables designed by J. J. Talbot were built; and around this time a kitchen and service quarters designed by Grayson and
Ould Ould is an English surname as well as an element of many Arabic names. In Arabic contexts it is a transliteration of the word wikt:ولد, ولد, meaning "son". Notable people with this surname include: English surname * Edward Ould (1852–190 ...
were added. In 1902 a music room followed, also designed by Talbot, and this formed a new block to the northeast of the main block. The work on the music room was carried out by H.H. Martyn & Co. Two years later a temporary ballroom was built, which was later converted into a swimming pool. A porch was added to the south front in 1906, changing the main entrance to the house from the west to the south. A gatehouse designed by J. Lomax-Simpson was built in 1910; the base of this is in stone and its upper part is
half-timbered Timber framing () and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy Beam (structure), timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and Woodworking joints, joined timbers with joints secure ...
. A major reconstruction of the house took place in 1913, when Elizabethan-style wings were added to its west side; Lomax-Simpson was again the architect. In the process of the reconstruction, most of the work designed by Douglas and Fordham was demolished, leaving only two shaped
gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...
s and semicircular
bay window A bay window is a window space projecting outward from the main walls of a building and forming a bay in a room. A bow window is a form of bay with a curve rather than angular facets; an oriel window is a bay window that does not touch the g ...
s. Plans for further enlargement of the house were prepared by Lomax-Simpson, but these were not carried out because of the outbreak of the First World War. The 1st Viscount Leverhulme died in May 1925 and the house was inherited by his son, William, 2nd Viscount Leverhulme. He died in May 1949 and the house passed to his son, Philip, 3rd Viscount Leverhulme. Lord Leverhulme died in July 2000, and, the following year, the house was sold with planning permission to convert it into a hotel. The sale of the house contents in 2001 broke the UK record by raising £10 million.


Architecture

The house is built in stone with
slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous, metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade, regional metamorphism. It is the finest-grained foliated metamorphic ro ...
roofs. It has three storeys and an irregular plan. The entrance front faces southwest and has protruding wings on both sides. Behind the house, at an angle towards the northeast, is the wing containing the music room. The windows are
mullion A mullion is a vertical element that forms a division between units of a window or screen, or is used decoratively. It is also often used as a division between double doors. When dividing adjacent window units its primary purpose is a rigid sup ...
ed and a number of them are in canted, two-storey bays. The stables extend to the northwest.


Grounds

The park was first laid out during Forwood's ownership. It included paths, a small summer house and a bridge. The gardens as they are now were planned by Thomas H. Mawson and the 1st Viscount. The kitchen garden contains a
loggia In architecture, a loggia ( , usually , ) is a covered exterior Long gallery, gallery or corridor, often on an upper level, sometimes on the ground level of a building. The corridor is open to the elements because its outer wall is only parti ...
dated 1912, and there is another loggia to the southeast of the house; both were designed by Lomax-Simpson. To the northeast of the house is a structure known as ''The Lookout'', which was designed in 1896 by Douglas and Fordham. A lake lies to the west of the house. A system of tree-lined avenues was laid out in 1912–14 by Lomax-Simpson, and has a total length of about .


Present day

The Manor House is now privately owned and is available to hire for weddings and events.
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and Irish
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held private talks at Thornton Manor on 10 October 2019 in relation to
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. On the evening of 5 February 2022, a substantial fire took hold in the main building, requiring the attendance of eight fire engines.


See also

*
Grade II* listed buildings in Merseyside There are over 20,000 Grade II* listed buildings in England. This page is a list of these buildings in the county of Merseyside. Knowsley Liverpool ...
* List of houses and associated buildings by John Douglas * List of works by Grayson and Ould * Listed buildings in Thornton Hough


References

{{Authority control 1913 establishments in England Country houses in Merseyside Grade II* listed buildings in Merseyside Grade II* listed houses Hotels in Merseyside Houses completed in 1913 John Douglas buildings Country house hotels