Monkspath Hall was a two-storey Georgian country house in

Monkspath Monkspath is a large residential community and light-industrial area of Solihull, West Midlands, England, southeast of the town's Shirley district (and served by Junction 4 of the M42 motorway). Monkspath is in the Blythe ward of the Metropolita ...

, historically in

Tanworth-in-Arden Tanworth-in-Arden (; often abbreviated to Tanworth) is a small village and civil parish in the county of Warwickshire, England. It is southeast of Birmingham and northeast of Redditch, and is administered by Stratford-on-Avon District Council. ...

Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, and the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon an ...

(since 1974 part of

Solihull Solihull (, or ) is a market town and the administrative centre of the wider Metropolitan Borough of Solihull in West Midlands County, England. The town had a population of 126,577 at the 2021 Census. Solihull is situated on the River Blythe ...

, in the West Midlands), England. It was built circa 1775, in

red brick A brick is a type of block used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a block composed of dried clay, but is now also used informally to denote other chemically cured cons ...

, and demolished illegally in 1980.

History

In the 1870s, the house was home to 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 ...

, the house was occupied, and the estate farmed, by Jack Bickford, who was injured when he picked up an

incendiary bomb Incendiary weapons, incendiary devices, incendiary munitions, or incendiary bombs are weapons designed to start fires or destroy sensitive equipment using fire (and sometimes used as anti-personnel weaponry), that use materials such as napalm, ...

nearby, which went off in his hands.

Demolition

Although the house was

Grade II listed 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 ...

, in theory protecting it from unauthorised alteration, it was demolished on the afternoon of 1 December 1980 – a Sunday – by a

bulldozer A bulldozer or dozer (also called a crawler) is a large, motorized machine equipped with a metal blade to the front for pushing material: soil, sand, snow, rubble, or rock during construction work. It travels most commonly on continuous trac ...

driver, who was supposed to be demolishing outbuildings on the opposite side of the road. (includes video clip) The then leader of the local council described the act as "sheer, stupid negligence".

Court cases

Following a 1981

Crown Court The Crown Court is the court of first instance of England and Wales responsible for hearing all indictable offences, some either way offences and appeals lied to it by the magistrates' courts. It is one of three Senior Courts of England and Wale ...

trial, the demolition company responsible, D. Doyle Contractors, was fined £2,000. The driver, who was a director of the firm and who had been warned beforehand by a local resident that the building was listed, was fined £1,500. In a separate, civil case brought by

Solihull Borough Council Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council is the local council of the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull in the West Midlands, England. It is a metropolitan district council, one of seven in the West Midlands and one of 36 in the metropolitan countie ...

in 1985, a Birmingham High Court judge, Mr. Justice McNeill, ordered that the cost of rebuilding the hall - estimated then to be in the order of £200,000 - using as much material from the demolition as possible, be borne by the contractor. He also awarded costs against the defendants, who had admitted their negligence.

Legacy

The demolition was referenced in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

John Heddle Bentley John Heddle (15 September 1943 – 19 December 1989) was a British Conservative Party politician. Political career Heddle contested Gateshead West in February 1974, being beaten by Labour's John Horam. In October 1974 he stood in ...

, MP for Lichfield and Tamworth, during a July 1981 debate on the ''Local Government and Planning (Amendment) Bill'', as an "act of wilful vandalism" for which he said "imprisonment and punitive fines are the only reasonable remedy." Heddle described the actual fines issued in relation to the case as "derisory". The rebuilt hall was

delisted In corporate finance, a listing refers to the company's shares being on the list (or board) of stock that are officially traded on a stock exchange. Some stock exchanges allow shares of a foreign company to be listed and may allow dual listing, s ...

in 1990, and has been divided into apartments.

References

{{Reflist Former buildings and structures in the West Midlands (county) Buildings and structures demolished in 1980 December 1980 events in the United Kingdom Grade II listed houses Grade II listed buildings in the West Midlands (county) Buildings and structures in Solihull