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History of Ellingham Hall

History of Ellingham Hall

The history of Ellingham Hall begins in the village of Ellingham, in the northeast of Northumberland. Ellingham village was once the centre point of an ancient barony that stretched from the Scottish Borders to Jesmond in Newcastle-Upon Tyne. This barony belonged to the family of Grenville during the reign of Henry I. There are records of an early building on the site of Ellingham Hall, however it wasn’t until the 19th Century that the structure you can recognise today came into existence. This Hall was built by and became the home of Sir John Haggerston Bart. Later, Edward Haggerston and his wife Mary, upon residence, further enlarged it.

Since then, the Hall has had a number of unusual uses. During the Second World War the land girls dug over what were the tennis courts to provide food, and the reception rooms and Chapel were used as a storage base for tea and flour.

The next change came with a Preparatory School for boys aged 5 to 18 in 1955 where lessons were taught in the front rooms, and the boys slept in dormitories on the top floor. The school ran until 1984 when the Hall was later bought by two property developers who planned to turn it into eight flats. However, these plans fell through, and the Hall stood empty and was subjected to vandalism and theft for several years.

Being left open to the elements the Hall began to decay, lead was stripped from the roof, cast iron baths were thrown from the second-floor windows into the arms of scrap dealers, and much of the beautiful Victorian masonry was destroyed. However, in 1995, the Hall was bought by its current owners who spent the next ten years restoring and renovating the building to its former glory, and it stands today as an award-winning wedding venue and a testament to great British workmanship over the centuries.