Biography
Sir Giles Alington jnr., was the eldest son of the eleven children of Sir Giles (1483-1522) and Mary. He was knighted by King Henry VIII at Whitehall Palace, London, on 11 November 1530. He attended the King as Master of Ordnance at the siege of Boulogne-sur-Mer, noted on the inscription of a clock which he brought from that siege, and affixed over the offices at Horseheath Hall, in which was contained the alarm bell of the garrison of Boulogne.
He was appointed High Sheriff of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire in the 22nd year of the reign of Henry VIII (1531) and again in the 37th year (1546) of the same monarch. He was returned to Parliament as knight of the shire (MP) for Cambridgeshire in 1529, 1539, 1554 and 1558 and also for Liverpool in 1553.
The Alingtons lived at Horseheath Hall for centuries. The house was rebuilt in 1663-5 by architect Sir Roger Pratt; (Vitruvius Britannicus is wrong in assigning the house to Webb). It was a neo-classical eleven-bay house with a three-bay pediment, quoins, hipped roof, balustrade and belvedere on the roof. It was further enlarged in 1688, but for reasons now unknown pulled down in 1777. The splendid wrought-iron gates went to St John's College and Trinity College Cambridge, and the rectory at Cheveley.
Read more about this topic: Giles Alington, Lord Of Horseheath
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