[1] Belgrave Hall was built as a substantial family home between 1709 and 1713 by Edmund Cradock, a Leicester hosiery merchant on a site adjacent to St Peter’s Church.

[2] The house, fronting onto Church Road, is a three-storey building in an unadorned classical style, from blue and red bricks, laid in Flemish bond, creating a chequered pattern.

[4] The road frontage has imposing wrought iron gates which incorporate an 'EC' monogram[5] leading to a recessed doorway, and a brick parapet which hides the three hipped gables of the roof, creating a very rectangular facade.

In accordance with his will, his married daughter Jane was to be given £1,000, and the remaining assets were to be divided equally between the two younger children, also called Anne and Edmund.

In order to begin distributing the assets of the estate the executors agreed the sale of the Mansion House in February 1716 for £1,350 to John Simons, who bought a further sixteen acres of land nearby the following year.

[5] In 1718-19 the actions of the executors were challenged by the younger daughter Anne and her new husband, James Holwell, who filed a petition to the Court of Chancery.

[8] John Simons had previously inherited the land opposite the hall, which at that time comprised orchards and paddocks[8] running down to the River Soar.

The result was that the Hall and lands were put up for sale, and were bought by William Southwell, a linen draper from Nottingham.

Along with his brother-in-law, William Vann, they based their framework knitting business at the Hall, utilising the substantial outhouses for warehousing and office space.

[13] James died in 1812, and by his will left the Hall and estate to his wife Hannah for her lifetime, and then to his cousin, Ann Hunt.

She was survived by her Marston descendants; and therefore the Belgrave Estate, which had by then become heavily mortgaged, passed to Anne's heirs and was sold by them in 1845 to John Ellis, a railway entrepreneur.

[8] The "Belgrave sisters" played a leading role in various Leicester institutions and hosted literary and social events at the Hall.

[8] She administered the town's poor law relief from 1892, alongside two other pioneer women guardians, Fanny Fullagar and Mary Royce.

Recalling their arrival, Gertrude wrote, 'The east side of the house was festooned by an enormous vine, and a few weeks later the flowers that haunt old gardens began to appear.

[18] At Margaret's funeral in 1923, the sisters were described as, "public spirited citizens, beloved and looked up to in Belgrave and Leicester.

[4] The furniture came from a wide variety of sources, some of it, such as the lion-mask chairs and settee in the Drawing Room, from much grander settings than this.

Two acres of gardens at the back of the Hall are open to public on Wednesdays and first full weekend of every month during summer season, which runs from April to September.

They were described by John Throsby in his Leicestershire Views as being "Pomona; Diana; Flora; Ceres; Hercules; Venus; a Satyr; a Turk and his consort; two Emperors and a Pope".

[29] Living TV's Most Haunted crew investigated here in 2003 with celebrity guests Vic Reeves and his wife Nancy Sorrell.