Keele Hall is a 19th-century mansion house at Keele,

Staffordshire Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation Staffs.) is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. It borders Cheshire to the northwest, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, Warwickshire to the southeast, the West Midlands C ...

, England, now standing on the campus of

Keele University Keele University, officially known as the University of Keele, is a public research university in Keele, approximately from Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, England. Founded in 1949 as the University College of North Staffordshire, Keele ...

and serving as the university conference centre. It 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 Ir ...

History

Early history

The manor of Keele was purchased by the Sneyd family in 1544, a

gentry Gentry (from Old French ''genterie'', from ''gentil'', "high-born, noble") are "well-born, genteel and well-bred people" of high social class, especially in the past. Word similar to gentle imple and decentfamilies ''Gentry'', in its widest c ...

family who held the mayoralty of the

borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme The Borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme is a local government district with borough status in Staffordshire, England. It is named after the town of Newcastle-under-Lyme, where the council is based, but includes the town of Kidsgrove and villages ...

several times as well as lands in nearby Audley and Bradwell. In about 1580

Ralph Sneyd Ralph Sneyd (1564 – 7 April 1643) was an English landowner and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1640 to 1642. He was a colonel in the Royalist army in the English Civil War and was killed in action on the Isle of Man. Sneyd wa ...

built a large gabled Tudor style house there. The family prospered as coal (in nearby

Silverdale, Staffordshire Silverdale is a village and civil parish in the Borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme in Staffordshire, west of Newcastle-under-Lyme. It is a self contained ward of Newcastle Borough Council returning 2 Councillors. Historically, the village was dom ...

) and iron owners and also brick and tile manufacturers. During the

English Civil War The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I (" Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of r ...

, Keele Hall was briefly instrumental is providing an asylum for King Charles II after the

Battle of Worcester The Battle of Worcester took place on 3 September 1651 in and around the city of Worcester, England and was the last major battle of the 1639 to 1653 Wars of the Three Kingdoms. A Parliamentarian army of around 28,000 under Oliver Cromwell d ...

in 1651. As royalist supporters, following the final Parliamentarian victory, the Sneyd family were heavily fined.

New hall

The hall was inherited by Ralph Sneyd in 1829, following the death of his father. By the mid-19th century the hall was in a derelict state. In 1851 the old house was demolished and replaced with the current

Jacobethan The Jacobethan or Jacobean Revival architectural style is the mixed national Renaissance revival style that was made popular in England from the late 1820s, which derived most of its inspiration and its repertory from the English Renaissance ( ...

design by architect Anthony Salvin, possibly to emulate the neighbouring estate at Crewe Hall. English architect William Eden Nesfield described Keele Hall as: The park was landscaped circa 1768-70 by

William Emes William Emes (1729 or 1730–13 March 1803) was an English landscape gardener. Biography Details of his early life are not known but in 1756 he was appointed head gardener to Sir Nathaniel Curzon at Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire. He left this post ...

, who added to or enlarged existing ponds and planted trees to conceal what remained working farms in the park. Its main natural feature is the wooded valley with ponds running south-east from Keele Hall to Springpool Wood at the park's southern extremity, abutting the M6 motorway. The pool in that wood was originally a hammer pond serving a forge.

Grand Duke Michael Mikhailovich of Russia

With the fortunes of the Sneyd Family in decline, the hall was let to

Grand Duke Michael Mikhailovich of Russia Grand Duke Michael Mikhailovich of Russia (Russian: Михаил Михайлович; 16 October 1861 – 26 April 1929) was a son of Grand Duke Michael Nicolaievich of Russia and a grandson of Tsar Nicholas I of Russia. He was raised in the ...

, a son of Grand Duke Michael Nicolaievich of Russia and a grandson of Tsar

Nicholas I of Russia , house = Romanov-Holstein-Gottorp , father = Paul I of Russia , mother = Maria Feodorovna (Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg) , birth_date = , birth_place = Gatchina Palace, Gatchina, Russian Empire , death_date ...

, and his wife Countess Sophie von Merenberg, between 1900 and 1909. They had undertaken a morganatic marriage that meant they would spend the rest of their lives living in exile in England, France and Germany. The couple entertained frequently at Keele Hall, and guests included Sophie's father Prince Nikolaus Wilhelm of Nassau, Prince Francis of Teck, Prince Pyotr Sviatopolk-Mirsky and Russian ambassador Count Alexander von Benckendorff. In 1901, Edward, Prince of Wales visited whilst visiting the

Duke of Sutherland Duke of Sutherland is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom which was created by William IV in 1833 for George Leveson-Gower, 2nd Marquess of Stafford. A series of marriages to heiresses by members of the Leveson-Gower family made th ...

, whose residence was the nearby

Trentham Hall The Trentham Estate, in the village of Trentham, is a visitor attraction located on the southern fringe of the city of Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, United Kingdom. History The estate was first recorded in the Domesday Book in 1086. At th ...

. During the ten years the Grand Duke lived at Keele Hall, he took up the life of an English country gentleman. The couple were popular with the local population, regularly visiting the local school in Keele village. The town council of Newcastle-under-Lyme conferred on Michael the distinction of Lord High Steward of the borough in 1902.

1945-Present

The Hall was requisitioned by the army 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 World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

and in 1948 with the aid of grant funding the Keele estate was sold by the Sneyd family for the establishment of the University College of North Staffordshire, which in 1962 became Keele University. Today, Keele Hall is used to host conferences, events and weddings.

Architecture

Exterior

The house is constructed from red and yellow

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicat ...

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 ...

with rusticated quoins. Designed to a roughly L-shape plan, the style is Jacobean Revival. Built around a courtyard, it consists of three stories with cellars. To one side of the courtyard is a more simply built

service wing Servants' quarters are those parts of a building, traditionally in a private house, which contain the domestic offices and staff accommodation. From the late 17th century until the early 20th century, they were a common feature in many large ...

Interior

The interiors of the

state rooms A state room in a large European mansion is usually one of a suite of very grand rooms which were designed for use when entertaining royalty. The term was most widely used in the 17th and 18th centuries. They were the most lavishly decorated in ...

are decorated in a mixture of styles, including

Louis XVI style Louis XVI style, also called ''Louis Seize'', is a style of architecture, furniture, decoration and art which developed in France during the 19-year reign of Louis XVI (1774–1793), just before the French Revolution. It saw the final phase of t ...

and Renaissance Revival. Some rooms are influenced by the works of English architect

William Kent William Kent (c. 1685 – 12 April 1748) was an English architect, landscape architect, painter and furniture designer of the early 18th century. He began his career as a painter, and became Principal Painter in Ordinary or court painter, bu ...

. The Tudor Revival dining room features tapestries from the Aubusson Manufactory and carvings in the style of Grinling Gibbons. The dining room is now used by Keele University as the university

common room A common room is a type of shared lounge, most often found in halls of residence or dormitories, at (for example) universities, colleges, military bases, hospitals, rest homes, hostels, and even minimum-security prisons. They are generally ...

References

Literature

* J. M. Kolbert: ''The Sneads & Keele Hall'', University of Keele, 1967. {{Keele University Grade II* listed buildings in Staffordshire Keele University Anthony Salvin buildings Anthony Salvin