Trentham Hall
Trentham Priory occupied land on the Trentham estate from the 11th century until the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The property was then sold in 1540 to James Leveson of Perton Hall, near Wolverhampton. The Leveson family occupied the property and Sir Richard Leveson built a new house in 1634. The Leveson heiress Frances married Sir Thomas Gower Bt leading to the creation of the Leveson Gower family. Their son Sir William Leveson Gower built a new house on the site in 1690. Henry Holland altered the house in 1775-78.
As for the former days of the last Trentham Hall built in the 1830s, William White wrote 1851: "Trentham Hall is the principal residence of the Most Noble George Granville Leveson Gower, Duke of Sutherland, Marquess of Stafford, Earl Gower, Viscount Trentham, and Hereditary Sheriff of Sutherland. It is an elegant mansion, situated near the village in a park of 500 acres (2 km²). It has been entirely rebuilt during the last 14 years, and now has an elegant stone front and a lofty square tower. The late hall was erected about 120 years ago, after the model of Buckingham House, in St. James's Park, but it was considerably altered and improved by the first Marquess of Stafford, from designs by Henry Holland, who gave a new and imposing feature to the whole. The present mansion is on a larger and more magnificent plan and the gardens rank amongst the finest in England." (History, Gazetteer and Directory of Staffordshire, Sheffield, 1851). The remodelling was also the work of Sir Charles Barry.
The Hall was one of many to be demolished in the 20th century when in 1912, its owner the 4th Duke of Sutherland razed it to the ground after his offer to give it to the people of Stoke-on-Trent was rejected. However, the gardens and the ornamental park with its lake and the Estate woodlands have all been preserved.
There are tentative proposals to rebuild Trentham Hall as a five star hotel.
Read more about this topic: Trentham Gardens