upright=1.35, Maer Hall Maer Hall is a large Grade II listed 17th-century country house in

Maer, Staffordshire Maer is a rural village and civil parish in the Borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, England, to the west of the pottery manufacturing town of Stoke-on-Trent. Its main feature is the large 17th-century stone-built country house, Maer H ...

. The large stone-built country house and estate of Maer Hall dominates the

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred ...

of Maer. Its location in the district of Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire,

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 ...

, is attractively rural, but fairly close to the pottery manufacturing area around Stoke-on-Trent which attracted its most famous owner

Josiah Wedgwood II Josiah Wedgwood II (3 April 1769 – 12 July 1843), the son of the English potter Josiah Wedgwood, continued his father's firm and was a Member of Parliament (MP) for Stoke-upon-Trent from 1832 to 1835. He was an abolitionist, and detested slav ...

. His nephew

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 ...

often visited Maer, and married Josiah's daughter Emma. A manor house at Maer dates back to 1282, the owner then being William de Mere. The present stone house was built around 1680 on a slope above a small lake, or " mere", which gave the house its name. In the 18th century the landscape designer Capability Brown altered the lake in a scheme of pleasure grounds. The house could be approached from either the north entrance with its grade II listed lodge, or from the village of Maer to the south with its grade II* listed gatehouse. left, upright=1.25, Maer Hall Gatehouse It lay only 7 miles (11 km) from the Etruria Works of the pottery manufacturer

, and in 1802 he bought the house using funds borrowed from his relative

Robert The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory, honou ...

. He had the house prepared, with the park being laid out by the landscape designer John Webb, and in 1807 the family moved in. There was a pleasant freedom of speech in the family, with everyone speaking their mind without restraint. They frequently exchanged visits to and from their Darwin relatives only 20 miles (30 km) away, and the young

found it a welcome contrast to the stricter approach of his father. Charles gained much useful information from his relatives during the

inception of Darwin's theory The inception of Darwin's theory occurred during an intensively busy period which began when Charles Darwin returned from the survey voyage of the ''Beagle'', with his reputation as a fossil collector and geologist already established. He was gi ...

, and it was at Maer Hall that he first became interested in the effects of the burrowing of

earthworm An earthworm is a terrestrial invertebrate that belongs to the phylum Annelida. They exhibit a tube-within-a-tube body plan; they are externally segmented with corresponding internal segmentation; and they usually have setae on all segments. T ...

s, which were the subject of an early paper presented to the Geological Society as well as of his last book. He proposed to

Emma Wedgwood Emma Darwin (; 2 May 1808 – 2 October 1896) was an English woman who was the cousin marriage, wife and first cousin of Charles Darwin. They were married on 29 January 1839 and were the parents of ten children, seven of whom survived to adulth ...

at Maer Hall, and they were married at St Peter’s Church, which stands close by on the hillside overlooking the Hall. After the death of

in 1843 the house and estate were owned by the pottery manufacturer William Davenport, of the

Davenport Pottery Davenport Pottery was an English earthenware and porcelain manufacturer based in Longport, Staffordshire, Longport, Staffordshire. It was in business, owned and run by the Davenport family, between 1794 and 1887, making mostly tablewares in the ...

, who added a huge clock tower and more stables, but these were knocked down in the 1960s, restoring the appearance of the original 17th-century Hall. For most of the 20th century it was the home of the Harrison family, owners of the Harrison Shipping Line.

References

External links

MAER, Charles Darwin (by John H. Wahlert)
{{coord, 52.942, N, 2.311, W, region:GB_source:enwiki-osgb36(SJ795385), display=title Country houses in Staffordshire Borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme Grade II listed buildings in Staffordshire

See also

References

External links