Saturday, 15 November 2025

The Cheeres at Barrington Hall.


Aide Memoire.

 Barrington Hall, Essex.


https://landedfamilies.blogspot.com/2020/03/408-barrington-of-hatfield-broad-oak.html


https://www.sworder.co.uk/auction/lot/lot-124---a-carved-limestone-statue-after-the-antique/?lot=555000


https://www.sworder.co.uk/auction/lot/lot-125---a-carved-limestone-statue-after-the-antique/?lot=550209&so=0&st=&sto=0&au=1257&ef=&et=&ic=False&sd=0&pp=96&pn=2&g=1


https://www.bulbeckfoundry.co.uk/page/statues-river-god/




John Shales Barrington's heir was his kinsman Sir Fitz William Barrington, 8th Bt. (d.1792), of Swainston (I.W.). Thereafter the estate again descended with the baronetcy until the death in 1832 of Sir FitzWilliam Barrington, 10th and last Bt., whose heirs were

William Lowndes of Chesham (Bucks.) and William Selby Lowndes of Whaddon Hall

(Bucks.), descendants of the above Anne Shales in the female line.

Little Barrington Hall Farm, Hatfield Forest, Bush End, Takeley, Essex, CM22 6NL. Built Heritage Survey

© Pre-Construct Archaeology Limited Nov 2022

PCA Report Number 15134 v1 9

4.13 In a partition of the estate made in 1836 William Lowndes received the northern

division, including the manors of Hatfield Regis (Broad Oak), Barrington Hall, and

Hatfield Priory, with lands totalling 1,374 a. and including Barrington Hall Farm. William

Selby Lowndes received the southern division, comprising 1,797 a. including Matching

Barns and Pierce Williams farms. Immediately after the partition of 1836 William

Lowndes sold his share of the estate to Thomas Lowndes (d. 1840). Thomas Lowndes

was succeeded by his sister's great-grandson George Alan Clayton, who took the

name of Lowndes. G. A. Lowndes (d. 1904), was for 25 years president of the Essex

Archaeological Society. His son and heir Major Alan H. W. Lowndes sold the

Barrington Hall estate to Alfred H. Gosling in 1908. The house, with 33 a. of land, was

conveyed by the Goslings in 1977 to the British Livestock Co., who in 1980 sold it to

Contemporary Perfumers Ltd.

4.14 John Shales Barrington, who succeeded to the estate in 1734, soon afterwards built a

new Barrington Hall, 1 km. north of the church, and enclosed it in a park. It is probable

that the architect was John Sanderson (d. 1774), and the builder his cousin Joseph

Sanderson (d. 1747). The main three-storeyed block of the house measured 110 ft. by

60 ft. and had a principal front to the south of nine bays, with a Corinthian portico from

which a perron staircase descended on each side to the basement floor. The walls

were of red brick, the architraves and embellishments of limestone ashlar. The ancillary

buildings were concentrated in a lower wing on the east side of the house. The interior

was fitted with carved fireplaces of stone and marble, one of which is said to have cost

£700, richly moulded plasterwork, and mahogany doors. Henry Cheere, the sculptor,

provided a stone staircase and a for both of which ironwork was supplied

by John Wagg, the black smith.

When the house was well advanced John Shales Barrington 'on some dispute about

tithes … or … on a matrimonial disappointment … gave up the design and retired to a

house at Waltham Cross, where he passed a long life in obscurity.' In 1771 Barrington

Hall lay unfinished and neglected, and most of the furniture had been removed. Sir

John Barrington, 9th Bt., who succeeded to the estate in 1792, made some alterations

to the house, but in 1809 it was again empty and still unfinished. By 1833, when

Barrington Hall was for a short time reoccupied, the eastern wing and the perron stairs

had been removed. When the estate was divided in 1836 the house was said to be in a

good condition, but by 1847, after a further period of neglect, it had greatly

deteriorated. It was not permanently occupied until 1863, when G. A. Lowndes

remodelled the house to the design of Edward Browning. He removed part of the west

end, altered the south front in an asymmetrical 'Jacobean' style, and changed all the

windows and the roof line. Many of the original fittings were retained. The interior was

modernized in 1956 and again in 1977.

4.16 The 18th-century park was laid out to the south of the house, with its main entrance

from the south-west, by an avenue approached from Mill (now Feathers) Hill. There

was an artificial lake near the house and an ornamental temple in the centre of the

park. After the remodelling of the house in 1863 some of the statuary and a capital from

the 18th-century south front were used as garden ornaments, and a terrace was

formed along the south front to reduce the apparent height of the basement storey. By

1875 a shorter entrance drive had been made from Dunmow Road, to the north-west

providing access from the new Takeley railway station (Powell, et al. 1983)

4.17 The Barringtons left Old Barrington Hall after the purchase of the Priory at Hatfield

Broad Oak in 1564 (Essex Gardens Trust, 2003). The Old Barrington Hall stood on a

moated site 2 km. north of Hatfield Broad Oak village and as cartographic evidence

shows immediately to the south and east of Little Barrington Hall. This later house,

(Little Barrington Hall) is thought to include older parts which are probably fragments of

an earlier, larger building. The east range, which has a continuous jetty along one side,

dates (stylistically) to the 16th century. marble table, for both of which ironwork was supplied

by John Wagg, the smith.

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