Brocket Hall - History

History

Sir Matthew Lamb, 1st Baronet, purchased the estate in 1746. He built the hall as it is seen today around 1760 to the designs of the architect Sir James Paine. It stands on the site of two predecessors, the first of which was built in 1239 and the second in about 1430. The latter was home to Sir John Brockett, a wealthy spice importer and Captain of Queen Elizabeth’s personal guard.

It is a tall red brick neoclassical house in a fine landscape setting with a Palladian bridge. The interior of the house is not on a grand scale but the exceptions are the main staircase and the Grand Saloon that was decorated specifically for entertaining royalty. The walls are lined with silk, the original furniture was made by Chippendale, the ceiling was painted by Francis Wheatley and the state banqueting table seats eighty people. The cost of this one room is recorded as £1,500 which equated to more than the cost of a substantial manor house at the time.

Sir Matthew Lamb's son was Peniston Lamb, 1st Viscount Melbourne and he was often visited at Brocket Hall by the Prince Regent, who had a liaison with Lady Melbourne. The next owner was William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, who was Queen Victoria's (a regular visitor to the hall) first Prime Minister from 1835-1841. His wife, Lady Caroline, famously had an affair with Lord Byron causing Lord Melbourne much embarrassment. For one of his birthdays she held a state banquet in the Saloon, and for a surprise course she arranged to be served from a large silver dish, and when the lid was raised, it revealed her completely naked. On his death, the house passed to his sister, Emily, whose second husband was another Prime Minister, Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston. Palmerston died at Brocket while still in office, reputedly on the billiards table whilst in the embrace of a chambermaid (his nickname was ‘Cupid’). The hall then passed to Emily's grandson by her first marriage, Francis Cowper, 7th Earl Cowper, though it was his younger brother, Henry (d.1887), who lived at Brocket.

In 1893, Lord Mount Stephen, formerly of Montreal, leased Brocket Hall from the 7th Earl for the remainder of his lifetime. The Mount Stephens had come to know Brocket as the first Lady Mount Stephen was a close friend of Georgina Gascoyne-Cecil, Marchioness of Salisbury, who lived on the neighbouring estate, Hatfield House. For the next three years guests included the Prince and Princess of Wales, the Duke and Duchess of Connaught and the Princess Mary, Duchess of Teck. When his first wife died in 1896, one year later Mount Stephen remarried Gian Tufnell, the Lady-in-Waiting to the Duchess of Teck, who encouraged the match. Gian was a lifelong friend and confidant of the Duchess' daughter, Mary of Teck, wife of King George V, and the Mount Stephen's regularly entertained the Royal couple. Gian preferred life at Brocket Hall to the social life that surrounded their city residence at Carlton House Terrace. She was said to have been exceedingly popular around Hatfield, and her many benefactions endeared her to hundreds.

After the death of the 7th Earl Cowper (1905), the estate was left to his niece, but she died only a year after him (1906) and the estate passed to her husband, Lord Walter Kerr, who lived at Melbourne Hall. When Lord Mount Stephen's died in 1921, Kerr put the estate up for sale and in 1923 it was purchased by Sir Charles Nall-Cain; he was created Baron Brocket in 1933. The hall served as a maternity hospital during World War II.