Pipewell Hall
| Pipewell Hall | |
| Northamptonshire | |
|---|---|
 Pipewell Hall | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | SP837855 |
| Location: | 52°27’40"N, -0°46’6"W |
| History | |
| Built 1675 | |
| For: | Lord Powis |
| Country house | |
| Information | |
Pipewell Hall is a country house by Pipewell in Northamptonshire, built near the ruins of a Cistercian abbey in 1675, at which time the estate was owned by the Barons of Powis. Today it is a Grade II listed building.[1]
The house was constructed from the stones of the old, fallen abbey.[2] Over the next three centuries the house had many illustriou sinhabitants. Today it is a wedding venue.
The Barons of Powis
Pipewell Abbey was a mediaeval monastery, owned by the Cistercian order. It was closed in 1538 at the Dissolution of the Monasteries under King Henry VIII, and its lands were granted to Sir William Parre; later the First Marquess of Northampton.[3] By 1620 it was in the possession of Thomas Cecil, Earl of Exeter. There is a deed dated 1622 which conveys "all the manor and lordship of Pipewell and the site of the late monastery of Pipewell with the appurtenances in the said County of Northampton" from the Cecil family to the Craven family.[4] When Elizabeth Craven married Percy Herbert, 2nd Baron Powis in the same year the lands came into the Powis family. Sir Percy temporarily lost some of his land in 1652 because of his recusancy, but he regained it several years later.[5] When Lord Powis died in 1667, his property was inherited by his eldest son William Herbert, 1st Marquess of Powis. It was he who owned the Pipewell Estate when Pipewell Hall was built in 1675.
It remained with the Powis dynasty until the early 1700s when it was bought by Charles Sambourne Le Bas. The historian John Bridges wrote "a Mr La Bas by purchase from the Duke of Powis was Lord of Pipewell".[6]
On the death of Albert Fitzroy Hambrough (1890-1921), the house was was sold to Samuel Janson Lloyd, the managing director of the ironstone company Stewarts & Lloyds which was founded by his father.[7] In 1943 it was inherited by his son David Llewellen Lloyd (1910-1996) who is famous for his development of a stalking rifle. In 1945 he married Evadne ("Bobby") Flower, and the couple remained at Pipewell Hall for the next sixty years. Their lifestyle was described in a 2003 newspaper article in the following terms.
- "After the war, the Lloyds settled at Pipewell Hall in Northamptonshire. Here Bobby participated fully in Lloyd's passion for rifle making and his long quest to create the perfect stalking rifle and a telescopic sight-mount which would stand up to rigorous use. Together they toured Europe to procure adequate supplies of walnut for the stocks. Life assumed a pattern: stalking in the autumn at Glencassley, the Highland estate which Charles Flower had bought in the 1870s, skiing at Gstaad in the winter (Bobby was still on skis at the age of 85), and motoring to Monte Carlo for the Grand Prix."[8]
David died in 1996 and Evadne in 2003 at the age of 91. In 2004 the Hall was sold.
References
- ↑ National Heritage List 1052035: Pipewell Hall (Grade II listing)
- ↑ “Northamptonshire Notes & Queries”, 1923, p. 173. Online reference
- ↑ A History of the County of Northampton - Volume 2 pp 116-121: @ (Victoria County History)
- ↑ “Collections historical & archaeological relating to Montgomeryshire and its borders”, p. 278. Online reference
- ↑ History of Parliament website. Online reference
- ↑ Dugdale, William “A History of the Abbies and Other Monasterie”, p. 433. Online reference
- ↑ Lloyd Samson et al “A Clear Premonition” , p. 7. Online reference
- ↑ The Telegraph, 20 August 2003. Online reference