Aide Memoire.
A River God -
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2025/06/the-lead-original-from-parham-park-in.htm
Barrington Hall, Essex. Some notes -
https://landedfamilies.blogspot.com/2020/03/408-barrington-of-hatfield-broad-oak.html
https://www.bulbeckfoundry.co.uk/page/statues-river-god/
https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/river-god-300469
From at least the mid-nineteenth century, local sources record the figure of the River God “at the overflow of the lake,” confirming its connection to the estate’s waterways.
Essex Record Office, Essex Parish History, “Notes on
Barrington Hall, Hatfield Broad Oak,” 1970, ref. T/P 446A/1.
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.
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. SirJohn 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.
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. Therewas 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.
By1875 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).
.........................
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 suppliedby John Wagg, the smith.
