Sudbury Hall is a country house in

Sudbury, Derbyshire Sudbury is a village and civil parish in Derbyshire, England, located about south of Ashbourne. It is part of the Derbyshire Dales district. The population as recorded at the 2001 Census was 976, increasing to 1,010 at the 2011 Census. The £0. ...

, England. One of the country's finest Restoration mansions, it has

Grade I 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 ...

status. The National Trust Museum of Childhood is housed in the 19th-century servants' wing of Sudbury Hall.

Background

The

Vernon family The Vernon family was a wealthy, prolific and widespread English family with 11th-century origins in Vernon, Normandy, France. Their extant titles include Baron Vernon and Vernon baronets of Shotwick Park. Vernon of Shipbrook, Cheshire William de ...

came to Sudbury as a result of the 16th-century marriage of Sir John Vernon to Ellen Montgomery the Sudbury heiress. The house was built between 1660 and 1680 by George Vernon, grandfather of George Venables-Vernon the 1st Baron Vernon and is notable for its superb Great Staircase, fine Long Gallery, and portraits by

John Michael Wright John Michael Wright (May 1617 – July 1694) was an English or Scottish (he signed as both at times) portrait painter in the Baroque style. Wright trained in Edinburgh under the Scots painter George Jamesone, and acquired a considerable rep ...

, and of Charles II's mistresses. Inside there is a mixture of architectural styles with carvings by

Grinling Gibbons Grinling Gibbons (4 April 1648 – 3 August 1721) was an Anglo-Dutch sculptor and wood carver known for his work in England, including Windsor Castle and Hampton Court Palace, St Paul's Cathedral and other London churches, Petworth House and othe ...

and Edward Pierce (who created the fine staircase), murals by Louis Laguerre and elaborate plasterwork by Samuel Mansfield, James Pettifer and Robert Bradbury. The carvings above the main entrance porch were sculpted by William Wilson. There are formal gardens with a tree-fringed lake. Cherry Ann Knott has suggested that the design of the hall was based on

Crewe Hall Crewe Hall is a Jacobean mansion located near Crewe Green, east of Crewe, in Cheshire, England. Described by Nikolaus Pevsner as one of the two finest Jacobean houses in Cheshire,Pevsner & Hubbard, p. 22 it is listed at grade I. Built in 16 ...

in Cheshire, which stands around 1.5 miles from Haslington Hall, where George Vernon was born. The property was leased for three years from 1840 by

Queen Adelaide , house = Saxe-Meiningen , father = Georg I, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen , mother = Princess Louise Eleonore of Hohenlohe-Langenburg , birth_date = , birth_place = Meiningen, Saxe-Meiningen, Holy ...

, the widow of

William IV of the United Kingdom William IV (William Henry; 21 August 1765 – 20 June 1837) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from 26 June 1830 until his death in 1837. The third son of George III, William succeeded h ...

. The east wing was added by

George Devey George Devey (1820, London – 1886, Hastings, Sussex) was an English architect notable for his work on country houses and their estates, especially those belonging to the Rothschild family. The second son of Frederick and Ann Devey, he was bo ...

in 1876–83. The building is now owned and maintained by the

National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...

.Sudbury Hall information at the National Trust
/ref> to whom it was gifted by the Vernon family in 1967. The house was used for the internal

Pemberley Pemberley is the fictional country estate owned by Fitzwilliam Darcy, the male protagonist in Jane Austen's 1813 novel ''Pride and Prejudice''. It is located near the fictional town of Lambton, and believed by some to be based on Lyme Park, south ...

scenes in the BBC dramatisation (1995) of Jane Austen's '' Pride and Prejudice''. The house's centrally-positioned domed cap-house featured in the title shot of Yorkshire Television's children's programme

The Book Tower ''The Book Tower'' is a British television series for children, produced by Yorkshire Television, that ran for 11 series from 3 January 1979 to 16 May 1989. Initially presented by ''Doctor Who'' star Tom Baker (1979–81), each episode explo ...

Notes

References

External links

Sudbury Hall — The National Trust Museum of Childhood information at the National Trust
Children's museums in the United Kingdom Country houses in Derbyshire National Trust properties in Derbyshire Grade I listed buildings in Derbyshire Grade I listed museum buildings Historic house museums in Derbyshire Toy museums in England Tourist attractions in Derbyshire {{Derbyshire-struct-stub

Background

See also

Notes

References

External links