Thoresby Hall - History

History

The 1st Earl of Kingston acquired the Thoresby lands in 1633, but was killed during the Civil War in 1643. His son the 2nd Earl built the first grand house, attributed to Talman, in about 1670. This was remodelled for the 4th Earl in 1685-87, probably by Benjamin Jackson, after the earl had been granted the right in 1683 to create the park by enclosure from Sherwood Forest. The 5th Earl was created the 1st Duke of Kingston in 1715.

The estate then passed to Evelyn Pierrepont, 2nd Duke of Kingston-upon-Hull (1711–1773), who fought at the Battle of Culloden in 1745 and during whose ownership the house was totally destroyed by fire that same year. Twenty years later John Carr in 1767–1772 built a new house on the same site. Humphry Repton landscaped the park at the same time.

When the 2nd Duke died in 1773 he left the estate to his wife, Elizabeth Chudleigh, the former wife of the Earl of Bristol. However, after a very public court case, she was declared bigamously married to the Duke and was obliged to surrender the property on her death in 1786 to the Duke's nephew, Charles Medows, a Royal Navy officer. He took the name Pierrepont and later became the 1st Earl Manvers.

In 1868–1874 the 3rd Earl Manvers commissioned the celebrated Victorian country house architect Anthony Salvin to pull the rebuilt house down after just a hundred years and replace it with the present house, erected 500 metres (550 yd) to the north. The present building measures 55 metres (180 ft) on its east and south fronts and 48 metres (157 ft) on its west front. The impressive Great Hall, with minstrels' gallery at the west end, is 19 metres (62 ft) long and 14 metres (46 ft) high. The house then descended to the 6th Earl who died in 1955 without a male heir and so the title became extinct. The house however remained in the family.

To minimise a perceived threat from coal mining subsidence the buildings were sold in 1979 to the National Coal Board who chose to sell it on the open market ten years later. After passing through a number of owners it was acquired by Warner Leisure Hotels which opened it as an hotel in 2000. The core of the Thoresby furniture collection was retained by the family to furnish their new house nearby, while the remainder was sold at auction by Sotheby's in 1989.

The 8,400-square-metre (90,000 sq ft) Salvin house had a new bedroom wing added before opening as a 200-room country house hotel with spa facilities. The bulk of the Thoresby Estate is still in the hands of the Pierrepont family with only a few acres of immediately adjacent grounds and gardens being owned by the hotel; the family permits access along some footpaths close to the house, and others which are rights of way.

The house was the birthplace of Lady Mary Pierrepont wife of Edward Wortley Montagu.