Dumbleton Hall is based in the village of

Dumbleton Dumbleton is a village and civil parish in the English county of Gloucestershire. The village is roughly 20 miles from the city of Gloucester. The village is known to have existed in the time of Æthelred I who granted land to Abingdon Abbey, a ...

between the towns of

Evesham Evesham () is a market town and parish in the Wychavon district of Worcestershire, in the West Midlands region of England. It is located roughly equidistant between Worcester, Cheltenham and Stratford-upon-Avon. It lies within the Vale of Evesha ...

and

Tewkesbury Tewkesbury ( ) is a medieval market town and civil parish in the north of Gloucestershire, England. The town has significant history in the Wars of the Roses and grew since the building of Tewkesbury Abbey. It stands at the confluence of the Riv ...

and on the boundary of Worcestershire and Gloucestershire. The Hall is a

Grade II* listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

building.

History

The original Dumbleton Hall can be traced from around 1690 as the home of the Cocks family for over 200 years. After the death of Sir Richard Cocks in the late 18th century the Hall fell into disrepair and was eventually demolished c1780. In 1830 the agriculturalist Edward Holland employed

George Stanley Repton George Stanley Repton (1786–1858) was an English architect. George Stanley, the fourth son of Humphry Repton, was a pupil of the Anglo-French architect Augustus Charles Pugin, and entered the office of John Nash, becoming one of his chief ass ...

to build the present Hall using the local

Cotswold stone The Cotswolds (, ) is a region in central-southwest England, along a range of rolling hills that rise from the meadows of the upper Thames to an escarpment above the Severn Valley and Evesham Vale. The area is defined by the bedrock of Jur ...

. The Hall was completed in 1832.

Elizabeth Gaskell Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (''née'' Stevenson; 29 September 1810 – 12 November 1865), often referred to as Mrs Gaskell, was an English novelist, biographer and short story writer. Her novels offer a detailed portrait of the lives of many st ...

, the novelist and cousin of Edward Holland, was a frequent visitor to the Hall. Holland's eldest son married Mrs Gaskell's daughter. Holland knew

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended fr ...

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...

and the Wedgwood family and they are likely to have been visitors. From 1881, Dumbleton Hall became home to the Eyres-Monsell family and in the 1920s and 1930s the Hall held house and society parties with regular guests including

John Betjeman Sir John Betjeman (; 28 August 190619 May 1984) was an English poet, writer, and broadcaster. He was Poet Laureate from 1972 until his death. He was a founding member of The Victorian Society and a passionate defender of Victorian architecture, ...

, later to become Poet Laureate, and the

Mitford sisters The Mitford family is an aristocratic English family, whose principal line had its seats at Mitford, Northumberland. Several heads of the family served as High Sheriff of Northumberland. A junior line, with seats at Newton Park, Northumberlan ...

. The German Ambassador

Joachim von Ribbentrop Ulrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop (; 30 April 1893 – 16 October 1946) was a German politician and diplomat who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nazi Germany from 1938 to 1945. Ribbentrop first came to Adolf Hitler's not ...

was invited to stay at Dumbleton. During the Second World War the Hall was allegedly considered as a suitable alternative venue for the

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the Bicameralism, upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by Life peer, appointment, Hereditary peer, heredity or Lords Spiritual, official function. Like the ...

. In the 1940s the

Women's Land Army The Women's Land Army (WLA) was a British civilian organisation created in 1917 by the Board of Agriculture during the First World War to bring women into work in agriculture, replacing men called up to the military. Women who worked for the ...

were billeted on the top floor of the Hall. The Hall became a private hotel in 1959 when it was purchased by the Post Office Fellowship of Remembrance for the benefit of its members for the sum of £180,000. In 1960 the Hall opened to provided holiday facilities to

Post Office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional serv ...

employees. It was funded as a living memory to those men and women of the Post Office who had died in the First and Second World Wars. A memorial garden was laid out in the former swimming pool area. Books of Remembrance listing all 12,830 postal workers killed in the two world wars were kept at the Hall, but these are now on permanent display at the

Postal Museum A postal museum is a museum dedicated to the display of objects relating to the postal service. A subcategory of postal museums are philatelic museums, which focus on philately and postage stamps. List of postal and philatelic museums Afric ...

in London. In early 2021 The Post Office Fellowship of Remembrance sold Dumbleton Hall Hotel with the profits being donated to Post Office and BT related charities, to continue its mission to provide a living memorial for those workers who died the two World Wars. Dumbleton Hall Hotel is now owned by the Dumbleton Hall Hotel Property Company Limited and represented by Bespoke Hotels, the UK’s largest independent hotel group.

Today

The Hall has been open to the general public as a hotel and wedding venue since 1996.

Namesake

The

Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...

named a

GWR 4900 Class The Great Western Railway 4900 Class or Hall Class is a class of 4-6-0 mixed-traffic steam locomotives designed by Charles Collett for the Great Western Railway. A total of 259 were built at Swindon Works, numbered 4900–4999, 5900–5999 and ...

locomotive after the hall in 1929.Dumbleton Hall fades into retirement ''

The Railway Magazine ''The Railway Magazine'' is a monthly British railway magazine, aimed at the railway enthusiast market, that has been published in London since July 1897. it was, for three years running, the railway magazine with the largest circulation in t ...

'' issue 1185 January 2000 page 49 ''Dumbleton Hall'' has been preserved and is currently in Japan.

References

External links

Dumbleton Hall
{{coord, 52.0190, -1.9821, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title Hotels in Gloucestershire Manor houses in England Grade II* listed buildings in Gloucestershire Country house hotels Hambro family

Hall In architecture, a hall is a relatively large space enclosed by a roof and walls. In the Iron Age and early Middle Ages in northern Europe, a mead hall was where a lord and his retainers ate and also slept. Later in the Middle Ages, the gr ...