Brooksby Hall

Situated 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) northeast of Leicester, the hall and the neighbouring church of St Michael and All Angels are the last remnants of the medieval village of Brooksby, which was founded during the period of the Danelaw in the 9th century AD.

In the 15th and 16th centuries Brooksby was depopulated by enclosures carried out by the estate's owners, which turned its cultivated land into sheep pastures in order to profit from a boom in wool.

The 1890–91 extension on the east side of the original part of the hall mimics the same style but adds a series of tall chimney stacks and mullioned windows in the gables.

[2] In the early 13th century the tenant of Brooksby, Gilbert de Seis, married a member of the Villiers family, a line of minor gentry of Norman descent.

At this time, Brooksby consisted of the hall, the nearby Church of St Michael and All Angels, a small number of peasants' houses and a field system with common land.

Sir John Villiers is recorded to have enclosed four farms on the estate on a single day, 6 December 1492, fencing off 160 acres and forcing 24 people to leave their homes and occupations.

Lord James Brudenell, later to gain the title of 7th Earl of Cardigan and fame in the Charge of the Light Brigade, leased it and buried his favourite horse, Dandy, under a large elm tree on the lawn in 1831.

Although he did not live there, leaving the occupation of the hall to his brother Captain Stanley Williams, he commissioned the Leicester architects R. J. and J. Goodacre to carry out a major expansion and redevelopment.

[12] It was subsequently left empty until 1906, when Captain (later Rear Admiral and Earl) Beatty of the Royal Navy and his immensely wealthy American wife, Ethel Field, leased the hall and 0.26 square kilometres (64 acres) from Joseph Grout Williams.

[15] Beatty also added an unusual reminder of his wartime service by putting a floating sea mine in the lake, though a story that he used to shoot at it for target practice is probably apocryphal.

[18] On the outbreak of the Second World War a year later this plan was put into effect, but the hall was subsequently opened to all ranks and services under the supervision of the Red Cross.

[21] While the hall is now used for weddings, conferences and banquets, the rest of the estate forms part of the merged Brooksby Melton College, which serves the county of Leicestershire and delivers a range of vocational courses.