Lound Hall is a country house which sits in between the villages of

Bothamsall Bothamsall is a village and civil parish in the Bassetlaw district of Nottinghamshire, England. According to the United Kingdom Census 2001 it had a population of 185, increasing (with the inclusion of Bevercotes and Haughton) to 270 at the 20 ...

and

Bevercotes Bevercotes is a hamlet and civil parish in the Bassetlaw district of Nottinghamshire, England, about six miles south of East Retford and five miles north-east of Ollerton. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 28. The population r ...

, in the county of

Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated Notts.) is a landlocked county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The traditi ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. The current house was built in the Georgian style in the 1930s for Sir Harald Peake, a mining company director. There has been a manor house on the site since the 1700s. The hall was used as an orthopaedic hospital during

World War II 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 opposin ...

, and later became a training centre for the

National Coal Board The National Coal Board (NCB) was the statutory corporation created to run the nationalised coal mining industry in the United Kingdom. Set up under the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946, it took over the United Kingdom's collieries on "v ...

as well as a mining museum. It has now reverted to private ownership.

Description

Lound Hall is located on the eastern edge of the village of

, close to the A1 dual carriageway and a few miles south of the town of

Retford Retford (), also known as East Retford, is a market town in the Bassetlaw District in Nottinghamshire, England, and one of the oldest English market towns having been granted its first charter in 1105. It lies on the River Idle and the Chesterfie ...

. It is situated next to the

River Maun The River Maun is a river in Nottinghamshire, England. Its source lies in Kirkby-in-Ashfield, and from there it flows north east through Mansfield (which takes its name from the river), Edwinstowe and Ollerton, these being the heart of the Sher ...

, and has extensive woodland to the north, stretching as far as the

River Meden The River Meden is a river in Nottinghamshire, England. Its source lies just north of Huthwaite, near the Derbyshire border, and from there it flows north east through Pleasley and Warsop before merging temporarily with the River Maun near Bo ...

. It is built in the neo-Georgian style, and is a

Grade II listed building 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 ...

, having received that designation on 14 November 1985. The house is private property, but can be seen from a public footpath which runs across the grounds. The hall was built using hand-made red bricks, with a tiled hipped roof. Its interior features several panelled rooms, one of which is a library with a marble fireplace, and another has an Adam-style fireplace.

History

Early history

Lound Hall is mentioned in a republished edition of ''Thoroton's History of Nottinghamshire: Volume 3'' by

Robert Thoroton Dr Robert Thoroton (4 October 1623 – c. 21 November 1678) was an English antiquary, mainly remembered for his county history, ''The Antiquities of Nottinghamshire'' (1677). Life Thoroton belonged to an old Nottinghamshire family, which took it ...

, with additions by

John Throsby John Throsby (1740–1803) was an English antiquary. Life The son of Nicholas Throsby, alderman of Leicester and mayor in 1759, by Martha Mason, his second wife, was born at Leicester on 21 December 1740, and baptised at St. Martin's Church t ...

, dating to 1796. The book says of the hall: "It is occupied by, what the world now fashionably denominates, a ''gentleman grazier''. It appears to have nothing striking either with respect to magnitude or elegance.". In 1832 the hall was situated in an

exclave An enclave is a territory (or a small territory apart of a larger one) that is entirely surrounded by the territory of one other state or entity. Enclaves may also exist within territorial waters. ''Enclave'' is sometimes used improperly to deno ...

of the parish of Gamston despite being closer to other villages. The ''History, gazetteer, and directory of Nottinghamshire'' for that year reported a local rumour that this anomaly was due to a corpse having been found in the hall some years previously, which was refused for burial by the chapelry at Bothamsall and therefore had to be taken north to Gamston.

Building of the current Lound Hall

The present-day hall was built in 1937, with architecture by York-based Brierly, Rutherford & Syme. Its first owners were the family of Harald Peake, a mining director with businesses in Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire, who had been a varsity rower at Cambridge and went on to become squadron leader of the

No. 609 Squadron RAF No. 609 (West Riding) Squadron of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force, originally formed as a bomber squadron and in the Second World War active as fighter squadron, nowadays provides personnel to augment and support the operations of the Royal Air Fo ...

in World War II.

Wartime

The Hall was requisitioned during

for use as a base for the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...

, and then later became a military hospital for injured servicemen, being attached to the Harlow Wood Orthopaedic Hospital in Mansfield. It reverted to its owners shortly before the end of the war.

Training centre and coal mining museum

In the post-war years, the hall became a regional training centre for the

. In 1971, two members of the

, R. W. Storer and Alan Griffin, set up a mining museum on the site. The museum featured the

headstock A headstock or peghead is part of a guitar or similar stringed instruments such as a lute, mandolin, banjo, ukulele and others of the lute lineage. The main function of a headstock is to house the pegs or mechanism that holds the strings at the ...

s from the

Brinsley Colliery Brinsley Colliery was a coal mine in west Nottinghamshire, close to the boundary with Derbyshire, in what is now Broxtowe district. History It was opened around 1842. It closed as a working pit in 1934 when the seams were exhausted. The shaft ...

in the west of Nottinghamshire, which had closed in 1970. The museum closed in 1989. Most of the museum's collection was relocated to the

Chatterley Whitfield Chatterley Whitfield Colliery is a disused coal mine on the outskirts of Chell, Staffordshire in Stoke on Trent, England. It was the largest mine working the North Staffordshire Coalfield and was the first colliery in the UK to produce one mil ...

mining museum in Staffordshire and, when that too closed, it was transferred to the

National Coal Mining Museum The National Coal Mining Museum for England is based at the site of Caphouse Colliery in Overton, Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England. It opened in 1988 as the Yorkshire Mining Museum and was granted national status in 1995. History Caphouse C ...

in Yorkshire. The headstocks from Brinsley were taken back to the original site of the colliery, which by then had become a country park.

Present day

The house and gardens are not currently open to the public but the exterior and stable courtyard can be seen from footpaths that pass through the grounds and main drive.

References

{{coords, 53.250, -0.952, display=title Houses completed in 1935 English gardens in English Landscape Garden style Gardens in Nottinghamshire Grade II listed buildings in Nottinghamshire Grade II listed houses Houses in Nottinghamshire Parks and open spaces in Nottinghamshire Vanderbilt family residences Tourist attractions in Nottinghamshire Country houses in Nottinghamshire