Ufford Hall is a Georgian country house in the village of Ufford, now in the Peterborough unitary authority area of the ceremonial county of Cambridgeshire, England. Ufford was part of the Soke of Peterborough, which was associated with Northamptonshire but had its own county council from

1888 In Germany, 1888 is known as the Year of the Three Emperors. Currently, it is the year that, when written in Roman numerals, has the most digits (13). The next year that also has 13 digits is the year 2388. The record will be surpassed as late ...

until 1965, and then formed part of

Huntingdon and Peterborough Huntingdon and Peterborough was a short-lived administrative and geographical county in East Anglia in the United Kingdom. It existed from 1965 to 1974, when it became part of Cambridgeshire. Formation The Local Government Act 1888 created fo ...

until 1974. The nearest town is Stamford, Lincolnshire. Ufford Hall

The Hall is a Grade I listed building. The house is built of

ashlar Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...

, the central five bays of three storeys with two-bay flanking wings on both sides, each of two storeys. At the front is a central pedimented porch with Tuscan columns. The Hall stands in a gravelled courtyard with the entrance façade facing the village street and with parkland to the rear.

History

The Hall was built in 1734 for Lord Charles Manners, a younger son of the Duke of Rutland and

Lucy Manners, Duchess of Rutland Lucy Manners, Duchess of Rutland (''née'' Sherard) ( – 27 October 1751), was a British heiress who married John Manners, 2nd Duke of Rutland. Early life Lucy was born around 1685 and was the daughter of the former Elizabeth Christopher and Ben ...

, on land he had bought from his mother. On his death it passed to his brother James who enlarged the original house by adding an extra floor and the flanking wings and also built a stable block. James left the house to his nephew, George Manners, who sold it by auction. It was bought by William Leigh Symes, owner of the Oxford estate, a sugar plantation in Jamaica, and, in 1797, inherited by his son, Robert. The latter never occupied the hall and it was leased to a succession of tenants for the next 100 years or so. Among the residents was Tory MP

Henry Swann Henry Swann ('' c.'' November 1763 – 24 April 1824) was a British Tory politician. He sat in the House of Commons for three periods between 1803 and 1824. Swann was elected at a by-election in September 1803 as a Member of Parliament (MP) for t ...

(1763 – 1824). In 1902 it was bought by Malcolm Wolryche–Whitmore who, on his death in 1940, left it to his nephew, Oliver Kitson, from 1958 Lord Airedale. His father, Roland Kitson, 3rd Baron Airedale, lived there until his death in 1958. The fourth Lord Airedale lived in the basement and converted the rest of the house into apartments. The stable block became a self-contained dwelling known as Fountain Court. Upon the death of Lord Airedale in 1996, the Hall passed to the National Trust who sold it on due to its poor physical condition. In 2015 a major restoration project was begun by the new owners; the renovations were completed in 2017.

References

{{coord, 52.6258, -0.3866, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title Country houses in Cambridgeshire Grade I listed buildings in Peterborough Grade I listed houses