Gaddesby Hall is an 18th-century brick-built house in the village of

Gaddesby Gaddesby is a village and civil parish in the Melton borough of Leicestershire, England. The population of the civil parish (including Ashby Folville and Barsby) at the 2011 census was 762. It is located around southwest of Melton Mowbray and ...

, Leicestershire. It was built in the late 1740s as a three-storey house with additions of 1868. It is a Grade II listed building. It was built on the site of an earlier house called Paske Hall which was surrounded by a moat and dated back to 1398. In 1534 it was home of Everard Palmer and the estate extended to 72 acres. Everard died in 1558 and the estate passed to his grandson Everard Howet who died in 1576. ~In 1598 it was bought by William Nedham of

Peterborough Peterborough () is a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, east of England. It is the largest part of the City of Peterborough unitary authority district (which covers a larger area than Peterborough itself). It was part of Northamptonshire until ...

who acquired adjacent land extending the estate to 230 acres. He died in 1600 leaving the estate to 7 year old Francis Nedham. Francis died in 1656 leaving the hall to his son, also Francis, who died in 1692. Next George Nedham died childless in 1738. His widow Elisabeth Penrice died in 1741. This old hall was pulled down in 1744, having been bought by John Ayre, High Sheriff for Leicester. He built a new hall and died in 1758. In 1807 it was owned by Anne Ayre, widow of John Ayre living there with her daughters Mary and Eliza. In 1811 Eliza married hero of Waterloo, Captain Edward Cheney but died in childbirth in 1818. Cheney died in 1848 and left the estate to his only surviving son, Edward Henshaw Cheney who died in 1889. Although Edward Cheney was buried with his wife in

Parish Church an impressive monument by

Joseph Gott Joseph Gott (1785–1860) was a 19th century British sculptor. His terracotta groups and animal and children pieces were very popular in the 1830s. Life He was born at Calverley near Leeds in 1785 the son of industrialist Benjamin Gott, ...

originally stood in the conservatory of the hall. This was moved to the grave in 1917. The estate was put up for sale in 1917, at which time the celebrated statue of Colonel Cheney was moved into St Luke's. In the early twentieth century it was the country house of

Maurice de Forest Maurice Arnold de Forest (9 January 1879 – 6 October 1968) was an early motor racing driver, aviator and Liberal politician in the United Kingdom. He held noble titles as a baron in Austria and later as Count de Bendern in Liechtenstein. Ear ...

. After suffering neglect and from its use by the American Armed Forces during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

, in 1950 the wings and top storey were demolished and the house was remodelled by C. E. Ogden.Pevsner, p. 105

References

Sources

Pevsner, Nikolaus Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (1 ...

(1960). ''The Buildings of England: Leicestershire and Rutland'' (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books)

External links

British Listed Buildings
listing for Gaddesby Hall {{coord, 52.71132, N, 0.98104, W, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title Houses in Leicestershire