History

Loddington Hall, Northants – a selective chronology

1235 Robert De Baud, or le Baud, Sheriff of Northamptonshire - possibly built original medieval Hall

1420 (or earlier) Kinnesman or Kynnesman were owners or tenants

1615 Syers owned the Hall. It was remodelled, the wings on the original hall were redeveloped, and the kitchen was moved from east wing to west, with a lowered floor.

1671 John Syers died in 1671, and the Allicockes inherited Loddington Hall. In the 17th century, Edmond Young and his son Richard were both Mayors of Evesham. Richard Young’s son, another Richard (d1752) sold up and bought Orlingbury manor in 1706 from the Bridges family. He built Orlingbury Hall between 1706 and 1709. In 1717 he also bought Little Harrowden manor. Young had married Elizabeth Allicocke in 1701 and in 1802 when the last of the Allicocks died his grandson Allen inherited their estates in Loddington, Sibbertoft, Isham and Hothorpe (Leicestershire). Loddington Hall had been owned by the Syers family in the 17th century and was inherited by the Allicocks in 1671. Loddington was sold in 1840. The Youngs remained at Orlingbury until 1920 (from Northants archives, Young (Orlingbury) c.1275-1895)

1713 John Allicocke died. Benjamin Allicocke succeeded him but drowned in his own canal in 1747. His daughter married, in 1700, a Richard Young (see below)

1747 Benjamin Allicocke drowned, and was succeeded by Charles

1750 Earthquake: “The trembling of the ground extended 60 miles N. and S. and 25 and 30 E. and W. Its greatest violence was at Creaton, Cottesbrook, Kilmarsh, Maidwell, Eveston, and some other small towns within 4 or 5 miles of Harborough, where a beam in the new tollhouse was split by the shock, and Mrs Alicock of Loddington, who had lately delivered of her first child, was so frightened that she expired in a few hours. Just before the shock the birds of a lady in Northampton were observed to droop remarkably, and hide their heads under their wings”. (The Gentleman's Magazine, and Historical Chronicle, Volume 23)

1771 Charles Allicocke died, and was succeeded by another Benjamin

1801 Benjamin Allicocke died

1802 Allen Allicocke Young inherited Loddington Hall from his grandfather (Richard Young above)

1830 Thomas Eyles (biography below)was tenant of Loddington Hall (Pigott’s Directory for Kettering)

1832 Robert Lindsay was born. He later became first Baron Wantage, and in 1858 married Harriet Sarah Loyd who later inherited the Overstone estate, which included Loddington Hall and its farming from her father Lord Overstone who died in 1864.

1835 Thomas Eyles was tenant, but Loddington Hall was still owned by Allen Allicocke Young. ‘Thomas Eyles (1769 – 1835) was an officer of the Royal Navy who served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Son of Thomas Eyles of Stratton Audley, Oxfordshire. Little is recorded about Eyles' early life and career in the navy. He was a protégé of Sir John Borlase Warren and was serving aboard Warren's ship, the 44-gun HMS Pomone, during the Quiberon Expedition in mid-1795. Eyles was a lieutenant at this time, and did not have an active posting, but Warren lobbied the Admiralty to give Eyles a position on the expedition, and himself appointed Eyles to oversee all matters related to signalling and transportation. Encouraged by the expedition's initial success, the Admiralty promoted Eyles to post-captain on 13 July 1795 and Warren to commodore. Eyles received an appointment to command the Pomone, initially as acting captain, and later being confirmed as captain. The expedition ultimately ended in the frustration of the British plans to encourage a French Royalist rising, but Eyles and Warren both benefited from it. He died at this rank on 29 September 1835, at Loddington Hall, Northamptonshire, at the age of 66, having never hoisted his flag’ (extracted from Wikipedia)

1840 Loddington Hall estate was sold to Lord Overstone
“Subsequent to the Youngs, the estate was owned by Lady Wantage (but not in 1840, so probably when her father died), daughter of Lord Overstone, and the house had become a farmhouse. The property was then bought by the Brookes of Great Oakley [in 1892/3], and the house, after considerable enlargement was either occupied by members of the family, or was let to tenants of good standing.” (Gotch, Squires homes)

“Loddington Estate was auctioned at 3pm Fri 31 July 1840 at the White Hart, Kettering. 345 acres plus mansion, manor, farms, farm house & buildings, cottages, blacksmiths and wheelwrights shops and ‘Thomas Davis of Loddington (one of the tenants) will shew the estate”. The sales particulars show it was the property of Allen Allicocke Young, with Mrs Dainty occupying the “farm house’. The Mansion (Loddington Hall) was “late the residence of Admiral Eyles, deceased, and now of his widow’.” (JAG35 in Northants archives)

1841 John Pell Dainty - Loddington, farmer, aged 21, wife Susanna 60, Elizabeth Cram 23, Mary Bradshaw 19, Benjamin Bolard 20 (1841 Census)

1851 John Pell Dainty - Farmer, aged 31, born Loddington. 390 acres, 17 men (1851 Census)

1854 “On the 17th March last, at Loddington Hall, near Kettering, Northamptonshire, England, after a short illness, in her 29th year, Elizabeth, wife of John Pell Dainty, Esq, and sister of Mrs Pulver, 91 Hunter St, Sydney” (Sydney Morning Herald)

1858 Dainty died, in his prime, from the drink. Will proved, under £5000

1858 Robert James Loyd-Lindsay married Sarah Loyd-Jones, heiress of Baron Overstone. Lindsay died 1901

1861 Thomas Noble Beasley (1825-92) was tenant, from Leicestershire, widower, farmer and landowner, 365 acres (1861 Census)

“Thomas Noble Beasley, of Canington, in the county of Nottingham, Common Brewer, and of Loddington, in the county of Northampton, Farrier, having been adjudged bankrupt under a Petition for adjudication of Bankruptcy, filed in Her Majesty's Court of Bankruptcy for the Birmingham District, on the 29th of November, 1862, a public sitting, for the said bankrupt to pass his Last Examination, and make application for his Discharge, will be held before George Williams Sanders, Esq, a Commissioner of the said Court, on the 20th day of January instant, at the said Court, at the Shirehall, Nottingham, at half-past eleven o'clock' in the forenoon precisely, the day last aforesaid being the day limited for the said bankrupt to surrender. Mr John Harris, of Lower-pavement, Nottingham, is the Official Assignee, and Mr John Ashwell, of Nottingham, is the Solicitor acting in the bankruptcy.” (London Gazette Jan 1863)

and April 1864 (London Gazette)

“In the Matter of Thomas Noble Beasley, of Carrington, in the county of Nottingham, Common Brewer, and of Loddington, in the county of Northampton, Farmer. I HEREBY give notice, that the creditors who have proved their debts under the above Petition for adjudication, bearing date the 29th day of November, 1862, may receive a Second Dividend of 1d in the pound, upon application at my office, as under, on Monday, the 18th of April instant, or on the three following Mondays, between the hours of eleven and two. No Dividend will be paid without the production of the securities exhibited at the time of proving the debt. Executors and administrators will be required to produce the probate of the will or the letters of administration under which they claim. JOHN HARRIS, Official Assignee, Low-pavement, Nottingham.”

1862 Beasley was bankrupt – see above

1869 Edward Oldham was tenant farmer (1869 Post Office Directory)

1871 Edward Oldham (1871 Census)

1873 Edward Oldham (son) “July, Edward Oldham born at Loddington Hall, Kettering” (The Standard July 19th 1873)

1878 “Tom E Oldham, aged 33, died at Loddington Hall, Northants, September 23rd,” (The Pall Mall Gazette, Sat, Sept 28, 1878). Also in The Standard London, Mon, Sept 30, 1878 where it says Loddington Hall is Tom Edward Oldham’s residence.

1880 Pytchley Hunt met at Loddington Hall (History of Pytchley Hunt, copy consulted in Northamptonshire Archives)

1881 Ezra Glover, 58, originally from Kilby, farmer of 350 acres, 7 men & 2 boys (1881 Census)

1888 Hannah Bailey, a servant at Loddington Hall, was accused of theft of property belonging to Miss Mault in Fraulein Reinhardt’s school in Loddington Hall. She was convicted of larceny and imprisoned for 2 months on 2 accounts each. Miss Helene, or Annie Reinhardt, lived in Kettering, and was a private teacher, and then Principal of South College Boarding School, age 39 in Kettering in 1891, from Germany. (Kelly’s Directory)

Northampton Mercury August 11, 1888

Kettering, Petty session –Wednesday, Before Mr G L Watson (in the chair), Mr J J Houghton, Colonel Arthur, and Mr J T Stockburn

Charges of theft by a servant

Mary Hannah Bailey, domestic servant, Loddington, was charged with stealing five yards of lace, one pair of stockings, and one pocket handkerchief, the property of Florence Annie Mault, housekeeper at Fraulein Reinhardt’s School, Loddington Hall, some time within the last six months. Prosecutrix having given evidence as to her suspicions of prisoner, and the finding of articles in her box, Inspector R. Hensher stated that he received the articles produced from the previous witness, who pointed them out to witness as they lay on the floor of the prisoner’s room at Loddington Hall. Prisoner, who was present, said witness might take them away as they did not belong to her, and on being charged with stealing them she merely laughed and made no further response. The same prisoner was further charged with stealing one silver brooch, one gold ring, and a 3d. piece, the property of Rachel Smith, a pupil at Mrs Reinhardt’s School on the 30th June. Evidence was given by Miss Smith to the effect that the brooch in question, which was made out of a Jubilee half-crown, was left with the other things mentioned in her bedroom, and on the 30th June the ring and threepenny piece were found in the middle of some cakes, which were being cut up. The cakes were put back with some others into the cupboard, and on the following day five of the number were missing from the place. Having reason to suspect that the things had been taken by one of the servants, witness went with Miss Mault to make a search. They went first to the prisoner’s sleeping room, and there found several things belonging to Miss Mault amongst prisoner’s things. The articles belonging to witness were not amongst the things in prisoner’s box but, on being asked to turn out her purse, prisoner did so, and the brooch and threepenny piece were found in it. She was questioned about the ring, but declined to say anything about where it was. Miss Mault gave evidence of a similar character, and Inspector R. Hensher stated that he found the missing ring in the cesspool of a closet at Loddington Hall on the 31st July. Prisoner made no defence in either case, and having been previously convicted, was committed for trial at the forthcoming Quarter Sessions.

(in November she was convicted of 2 offences of larceny and sentence to 2 months for each to run concurrently, but then in April 1889 she was given 3 months for larceny, so possibly reduced - her name wrongly recorded as Jane Hannah Bailey!)

1891 John Thomas Fryer, farmer, from Hambleton, Rutland. (1891 Census). Buried in Loddington churchyard

1892 Capt Arthur Watson de Capell Brooke, after protracted conveyancing over a year or two, bought the house and land from Lord Wantage and greatly enlarged it. His daughter Edith Brooke lived at Loddington Hall (he stayed at Great Oakley, the family seat of the Baronetcy, until shortly before his death in 1896). His mother, Catherine Watson, daughter of Baron Sondes, was born at Rockingham Castle.

Papers in the Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) record A W de Capell Brooke as client for installation of a greenhouse at Loddington Hall by Messenger & Company

1893 Loddington Hall was considerably extended, almost doubling it in size, by Capt de Capell Brooke. Their family crest (spes mea deus - God is my hope) figures in the stone insert on the extension. The arm, anchor and demi-seahorse are however the crest of Sir Arthur Richard de Capell Brooke, not Arthur Watson de CB.

1896 “…have to record the death of Mr. Arthur Watson de Capell Brooke, late Captain 4th Hussars, which took place on Sunday at Loddington Hall, Northants. He was born in 1836, and was the third son of the late Sir William de Capell Brooke, Bart, of Great Oakley Hall, Northants, by his wife, the Hon. Catherine Watson, daughter of the second Baron Sondes. He married in 1865 Eleanor Frances, daughter of the late Mr. Thomas Thornhill, of Fixby Hall, Yorkshire. He leaves one son and three daughters. The funeral will take place Loddington on Friday at three o'clock. Deceased was Justice of the Peace for Northants, and until a few weeks ago was a regular attendant at Kettering police-court. In politics he was staunch Conservative, in religion a firm Churchman. His health had late been failing, but was only few days prior to his death that his illness necessitated his remaining in bed. Unfavourable symptoms developed towards the end of last week, and despite the constant attention of his medical adviser, Dr J. More, of Rothwell, he gradually sank, expiring about pm on Sunday. Until a few years ago deceased resided Great Oakley Hall, but on the succession of the present baronet he removed to the beautiful Elizabethan Manor House Loddington.” (Stamford Mercury, 10 April 1896)

1897 Beatrice Fox, a friend of the de Capell Brookes, and a visitor at the time, burned to death at Loddington Hall. (Daily News, London, England), Thursday, April 8, 1897 - see newspaper article image)

And in The Morning Post, London, England, Friday, April 9, 1897 it was reported as follows: “FOX on the 6th inst at Loddington Hall, Kettering, from severe burns, Beatrice Elizabeth Douglas Fox, of Widcombe terrace, Bath, third daughter of the late Charles B Fox Esq of Malpas, Newport, Mon.”

1897 Lady de Capell Brooke’s second daughter Edith married Duncan McPherson.

1899 Lady de Capell Brooke, widowed in 1896, was still in residence. Her daughter Eleanor married Gerald Seymour Guinness.

1900 “SERIOUS FIRE AT Shortly after three o'clock yesterday afternoon outbreak fire was discovered in the stack-yard adjoining Hall, belonging Mrs. de Capell de Brooke. A messenger was immediately despatched to Rothwell, and a horse having been chartered from Mr. F. Barlow, J,P., the manual left with the following: Captain W. T. Messrs: W. Coleman, T. Crook, A. Dunkloy, G. Miller, J. W. Luck, A. Abdy, and A. Pollard. Within twenty minutes men arrived on the scene of the fire, and quickly got to work on a stack of hay, from which the flames proceeded. The firemen used every endeavour to prevent the fire from spreading, and after about three hours work their efforts proved completely successful. Large portions of the burning stack were put away, Capt. Tom Weatherall personally directing operations. The quelling the outbreak was undoubtedly due to the prompt arrival of the Rothwell manual and firemen. At 5.30 yesterday the flames had been practically extinguished. At present the cause of the outbreak is not known. Had the fire occurred at night the stack would without doubt have been totally destroyed. The burning stack contained 30 tons of hay, of which about half was destroyed. As there are seven other stacks in the yard and the stables adjoining, it will be seen that speedy measures alone prevented a large conflagration. should mentioned that P.C. Simpson and several others from Rothwell assisted the firemen, who were personally thanked by Mrs. Capell Brooke for their promptness attending the fire.” (Northants Evening Telegraph sat 15 sept 1900)

1901 Only the servants were present in April 1901. Mrs de Capell Brooke was there in Sept 1900, but no Head of family or owner is specified (1901 Census)

1902 Adam Rivers Steele, solicitor son of Adam Steele, also a solicitor, bought and moved into Loddington Hall from Harlow, Essex

1903 Kelly’s directory records Adam Rivers Steele (but was Lady Wantage still lady of the manor as suggested by Kelly’s 1903?)

1903 Archeological finds: “Besides these Anglo-Saxon objects, there was also shown an unusual type of drinking cup (Bronze Age), which was found last month at Loddington, near Kettering, on some land belonging to Adam Steele, of Loddington Hall, who lent them to Northampton Museum. Several exhibits were such that they were detained Mr H. Bead, the Keeper of Antiquities in the British Museum. Thanks were returned to Mr Gotch for his paper, and to the Committee for allowing the exhibition of interesting remains.” (Northampton Mercury Fri 26 Jun)

1907 Messenger & Co installed a greenhouse for Adam Steele

1908 “Steele, A. R., Loddington Hall, Kettering, Northamptonshire... LC 1884” (36 ESSEX FIELD CLUB YEARBOOK, 1908)

1910 Eleanor Steele died 20 April. She left about £5000 in her will. Buried in Loddington Churchyard, and later, Loddington Village Hall endowed in her memory by her husband

1911 15 people, all employees, were in Loddington Hall - all the women servants names began with M ! (1910 Census)

1918 “Two German prisoners war who escaped from a working party at Loddington ironstone pits, five miles from Kettering, were recaptured owing to the vigilance of Miss Steele of Loddington Hall, a member of the Woodland Pytchley Hunt. They ran away ..” (April 05, 1918, Evening Telegraph, Dundee, Angus)

1920 Lady Wantage died aged 83

1921 Camilla Steele of Loddington Hall, advertised horses in The Hunter Stud Book, vol 18

1928 Adam Steele died aged 84, ‘his brother Harmer, the executor, then died leaving the will unadministered, but his will appointed the public Trustee as executor and the Estate was left to his son Adam Rivers Steele, and other son John Wheatley Steele, and Northbrooks to Charles, then everything was left to Eleanor [Adam’s daughter]’ (ZB257 in Northants archives)

1929 “Eventually the estate was acquired in 1929 by Mr Stephen Schilizzi (b1872) who resides in the Hall.” (Gotch, Squires Homes)

1931 “Stephen Schilizzi was born on 15 April 1872. He was the son of John Schilizzi. He married Julia Ralli, daughter of Sir Lucas Eustratio Ralli, 1st Bt. and Eugenie Argenti, on 11 January 1896. He died on 18 July 1961 at age 89. He lived at Loddington Hall, Kettering, Northamptonshire, England. Children were Mary Julia Schilizzi d. 20 Jan 1972, Alexandra Helen Schilizzi, Major John Stephen Schilizzi b. 15 Dec 1896” (Source Link)

Loddington cricket club
The following week saw Loddington play at Great Oakley, with the hosts scoring 57 to the visitors 46. After the game, the visitors were entertained to tea by Captain A.W. de Capell Brooke, at Great Oakley Hall. Friendly cricket was played until the end of the century, against such opponents as Thorpe Malsor, Kettering Bible Class, Kettering Church Institute, Brixworth, and Weekley and Warkton. From 1896 to 1899 the club also ran a second XI. In a game against Weekley & Warkton in 1899, the team are referred to as the "Ironstone Clickers" by the match reporter. No cricket was played in 1900 as the club was unable to secure a ground, but cricket resumed the following year, and continued until the 1st World War. In the Village Hall is a picture of the team winning a cup in the 1920s. Apart from that, there is little information about the club until the 1960s, although Stephen Schilizzi, resident at Loddington Hall, and President of Northants CCC at the time, invited the famous 1948 Australian tourists, including Don Bradman on his last tour of England, to tea at the Hall during the rest day of the Trent Bridge Test.

WW2 Anecdotal evidence suggests officers occupied the hall, and soldiers were billeted up the stable yard in the village (Marge Arneill, Loddington resident). Anecdotal evidence from Ron Clarke, who worked as an electrician at the time, that the Hall was used to store artefacts from the British Museum.

1943 Messengers installed a boiler for Stephen Schilizzi (Museum of Rural Life, Reading)

1944 Daughter Alexandra Schilizzi stood as Liberal candidate for North Kettering (The Liberal Magazine vol 52-53)

1944 In March, a USAF Dakota crashed after engine failure, somewhere in the environs of Loddington Hall. Entry details record it as follows:
440302 MCINTOSH, EDWARD B C-47A 42-100544 COTTESMORE (489), ENGLAND, UK, LODDINGTON HALL, UK 436
Source Link

1948 Major Stanley Barrett owned the Hall between 1948-50 at least. A flower show was held in the grounds of Loddington Hall in Sept 1948 and Major Barrett appears in a photo of the new cricket field in 1950.

1952 Julia Schilizzi (Ralli) died. Loddington Hall was sold to Northants County Council, and finally opened as a special school, after questions had been asked in Parliament about the delay.

Marge Arneill, a resident of Loddington, worked in the laundry, from about 1952, part-time for 28 years. Her mother worked in the kitchen for the Schilizzi family, and her mother-in-law was a maid to the Steeles (and slept in the Steele daughters’ bed one night when she was frightened after seeing the ghost, the Red Lady!). Mrs Arneill’s father-in-law Mr Hall was the head gardener.

Marge Arneill remembers there was a Lord North at Loddington Hall, but no documentary evidence has been found as yet, although it looks like it might have been the actor, and colourful character, Neil Dermot North, who was also known as Lord North.

1950-55 Papers at The National Archives, Kew (ED 32/1853) contain details of Loddington Hall as a special school, including inspection reports

60s & 70s “My husband went to this school mid 1960s to early 1970s. He is looking for old friends who were there with him”. Recently, a gentleman from Finedon visited the Hall for the first time in many years – he had been a student at the school and remembered the boys’ dormitories on the second floor, and rumours of a tunnel running from the Hall to the Church…

1972 Swimming pool, kennels and nursery gardens were on the maps of the property

1983 Loddington Hall ran special courses, and published adverts for posts including domestic bursar, youth worker in 1984 and 85 (Caterer & Hotel Keeper, and New Society)

1990 Loddington Hall was converted to apartments

Click Here to view More historical information

Loddington, a parish, with a village, in Northamptonshire, nearly 4 miles W of Kettering station on the M.R. It has a post office under Kettering; money order and telegraph office, Rothwell. Acreage, 1235; population, 206. The manor belonged to the De Bauds; passed to the Kinnesmans, the Syerses, and the Allicockes, and belongs now to Lord Wantage. The hall, or old manor house, a beautiful Tudor edifice, is now the residence of Captain A. W. Capell Brooke, who purchased it from Lord Wantage in 1892, and has greatly enlarged it. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Peterborough ; tithe commuted at £390 with residence. Patron, the Lord Chancellor. The church is a building of stone chiefly in the Early English style; comprises nave, S aisle, N porch, and chancel, and has a beautiful Early English tower, surmounted by a very early Decorated octagonal broach spire.
Transcribed from The Comprehensive Gazetteer of England and Wales, 1894-5

KYNNESMAN, Simon, of Loddington, Northants

The subject of this biography was a great-grandson of Richard Christian and his wife, Sibyl, through whom, in 1427, he laid claim to the manor of Great Oxendon in Northamptonshire. His own home, however, was at Loddington, where he lived from 1420 onwards, if not before. It was then that he obtained permission to celebrate mass within his ‘mansion house’ there, instead of having to worship at the local church. We know nothing about his early life and immediate background, although he was probably either the son or grandson of the Richard Kynnesman of Loddington who was involved in various local transactions during the 138os. His family seems to have been both prolific and influential, for one of his relatives, named William Kynnesman, was active in Northamptonshire as a tax collector, while another, Stephen Kynnesman of Arthingworth, sat with him in the Parliament of December 1421 as member for the borough of Northampton. Simon and Stephen may well have been brothers, since they often appeared together. In July 1401, for example, the two of them witnessed a conveyance of three Northamptonshire manors, and at a much later date, in 1419, they were both among the leading figures in the county named by the j.p.s as being capable of bearing arms against the French.

Although Kynnesman never held any administrative post in Northamptonshire he was evidently quite well known there. In April 1421 he attested the return of shire knights made at Northampton, and in the following December he himself took a seat in the House of Commons. He often acted as a feoffee-to-uses, as, for example, in 1423, when he and Roger Flore obtained a royal pardon for acquiring various properties in trust from Sir Thomas Aylesbury’s widow without first seeking the King’s permission. His name figures quite frequently among the witnesses to local deeds, notably in the neighbouring villages of Draughton and Maidwell. Much of his time during the 1420s was taken up with a protracted and acrimonious dispute over the ownership of the manor of Great Oxendon, which he claimed as part of his maternal inheritance. The manor was occupied by Thomas English and his wife, Joan, the widow of Henry Mulsho, whom he took to court in the summer of 1427. The suit dragged on for almost four years until Humphrey, earl of Stafford, intervened to reconcile the two parties. Given that various members of the Mulsho family had been or were then connected with the Staffords, it seems likely that the earl was disposed to favour the defendants. At any rate, by a deed of February 1431 Kynnesman agreed out of ‘respect for Humphrey, earl of Stafford’ to make peace with English and his wife, and surrender all his claims to their property in return for a rather niggardly cash payment of 20 marks.

Kynnesman was still alive in April 1439, but no more is heard of him after that date. A reference of August 1458 to a plot of land in St. Margaret’s parish Leicester ‘late of Simon Kynnesman’ may well concern him, but no other evidence has survived to suggest that he owned land outside Northamptonshire. His property there remained in the hands of the family for many years, and it seems likely that the Robert Kynnesman who died seised of the manor of Loddington in Richard III’s reign was one of his children or grandchildren.”
Source Link

Listed buildings website:

Source Link
House. c 1300, extended and remodelled c 1615, with additions in matching style, 1893. Coursed and squared ironstone with limestone dressings, Collyweston and Welsh slate roofs. Plinth to front wings and porch, string courses to front wings, coped gables throughout, parapet to central 3 bays. Mullioned and mullioned and transomed windows throughout with flat hood moulds. Grouped gable and off-centre ridge stacks, plus smaller ridge stack, all stone. 2 storeys plus garrets, 5 bays. E-plan, originally an open hall. Near-symmetrical west front has a central 2-storey gabled porch with corniced Classical ashlar doorcase and 2-leaf panelled doors. Above it, a 3-light window. Beyond, on either side, a 3-light window and above them, single cross-eaves dormers with 3-light windows. Beyond again, single wings. Cross-gabled south wing has a 4-light window and above it a smaller 4-light window. In the return angle, a blocked 2-light window to the first floor and to the dormer above it. South side has 2 C19 casements flanked by single blocked windows. Above, central 4-light window flanked by single 3-light windows. Above again, in dormer to left and gable to right, a 3-light window. Gabled north wing has a 4-light window to west and above it, a larger 4-light window. Above again, a smaller 3-light window. Return angle has a C19 roll moulded 4-light Gothic casement and above it, a similar 3-light window. Above again, a dormer with a 2-light window. North side has a large external chimney breast and to its left a 2-light cellar window and above it, 3 C19 casements. Above again, a C19 cross casement and a dormer with a C17 cross casement. Multi-gabled C19 rear addition has irregular plan with wings to north and south and to north east, an L-plan single storey service range enclosing a service courtyard. Interior has a noteworthy smoke blackened principal rafter roof, c 1300, with double tie-beams, passing brace and part of a central base cruck. North end has an early C17 3-flight dogleg staircase, restored C19, with moulded handrail and shaped splat balusters to stairs and landing. Fielded panelled dado, C18. Central hall has framed panelling with chip-carved frieze, mainly C17, restored late C19. C17 fluted and carved oak pilasters to doorcase, with mock capitals. On the long side, an off-centre early C17 ashlar fireplace with strapwork,restored C19. South wing first floor has a mid C18 oak staircase with moulded handrail and vase and stem balusters. First floor bedroom has C18 moulded wood Classical fireplace with ornamental panel. Dressing room above porch has full height moulded panelling. North wing basement has a C17 moulded cross-beamed ceiling and a segmental pointed fireplace opening with diamond keystone dated 1615. North and south wing garrets have each a 4-centred arched stone fireplace. Other rooms have mainly C19 fireplaces, fielded 2-panel and 5-panel doors. Loddington Hall was constructed by Robert Le Baud, then in charge of Royal works at Geddington, c 1290-1300. It was remodelled by the Syers family c 1615 and passed in 1660 to the Kynnesman family. In the mid C20 it was used as a school and as a training centre. There are plans to convert it to flats, 1987. Sources; RCHM unpublished survey notes. Verbal notes from J Heward, Pevsner

Loddington Hall Special School – question raised in Parliament in 1952 from Hansard:

HC Deb 21 February 1952 vol 496 cc55-6W 55W
§ 97. Mr. Mitchison
asked the Minister of Education how many children in Northamptonshire are waiting for places at special schools; and what action she intends to take on the proposal of the Northamptonshire Education Committee in their recent review of 1952–53 expenditure to postpone, until September, 1953, the opening of a residential special school at Loddington Hall.

§ Miss Horsbrugh
On the 1st December last there were, according to returns submitted by the local education authority, 150 handicapped children awaiting places in special schools, of whom 134 were educationally sub-normal.

I approved plans for the adaptation of Loddington Hall on 19th January, 1952. I have not been informed by the authority 56W that they have decided to defer carrying out the work, but on my present information I should not regard the postponement of this proposal as justifiable.

§ 99. Mr. Mitchison
asked the Minister of Education whether she is aware of the need not to reduce the standard of efficiency in the School Health Service; and what action she intends to take on the proposal of the Northamptonshire Education Committee in their recent review of 1952–53 expenditure to omit from their forecast provision for an additional medical officer and for £1,552 to be spent on drugs, medical requisites and apparatus.

§ Miss Horsbrugh
Yes. I understand that for three years the authority have provided in their estimates for an additional post of school medical officer, but that this officer is no longer needed as the work done by his predecessor, which was mainly ophthalmic, is now carried out for the local education authority by the National Health Service. The authority have therefore now omitted this item from their estimates and I do not consider that I need take any action in the matter. The sum of £1,552 is for the provision and equipment of the mobile dental clinic referred to by the hon. and learned Member in his previous Question.

History

Loddington Hall, Northants – a selective chronology

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