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Sudbury Hall — Crewe Hall: A Close Connexion
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 April 2016
Extract
Sudbury Hall in Derbyshire was begun in the early 1660s, roofed and richly decorated in the 1670s and its interior further adorned in the 1690s. Yet the Jacobean characteristics of its plan and façades have led to suggestions that its structure was built much earlier in the seventeenth century (Figs 2 and 3).
Its creation was the life work of one man, George Vernon (1636–1702), who inherited Vernon estates in Derbyshire, Staffordshire and Cheshire upon the death of his father in February 1659. Sudbury was the most extensive of these. George Vernon had not, however, been brought up there. Upon their marriage in 1635, his parents had established themselves on his mother’s ancestral estate of Haslington in Cheshire. His mother was an heiress, the sole surviving child of a judge, Sir George Vernon, who died in 1639. George’s father did not inherit Sudbury until June 1657. George and his younger siblings were born at Haslington Hall, which remained the family’s home throughout the civil wars and commonwealth years, and was in due course part of George’s inheritance.
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- Section 7: Country Houses
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- Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 2001
References
Notes
1 Hussey, Christopher, ‘Sudbury Hall Derbyshire — II’, Country Life, LXXVII, 22 June 1935, p. 650 Google Scholar.
2 The most accurate summary of George Vernon’s circumstances and his undertakings at Sudbury is in Tinniswood, Adrian, Historic Houses of the National Trust (London, 1991), pp. 135-41Google Scholar.
3 Stephen, Leslie and Lee, Sidney, Dictionary of National Biography, v (London, 1917), p. 81 Google Scholar.
4 Smith, William, Webb, William, Lee, Samuel, Chaloner, James and King, Daniel (publisher), The Vale Royal of England (London, 1656)Google Scholar.
5 Entries for John Ball’s account for ‘all ye windowes in ye new house to ye porth, glased and unglased from the kitchen end’: George Vernon’s ‘Creditor-Debtor Book’ (labelled in nineteenth century ‘No. 88 Day Book 1660’), fol. 60, in private collection.
6 MS volume, ‘Rental and disbursements for Haslington, Cheshire’, 1663-65, kept by John Acton: Derbyshire Record Office, Matlock, 410/M Box 2A.161. Only entries relating to bills or receipts were numbered, these being correspondingly numbered, though very few survive.
7 Sir Roger Townshend had given between 1s. and 5s. to those who showed him various buildings of architectural interest in 1619: Campbell, Linda, ‘Documentary Evidence for the building of Raynham Hall’, Architectural History, 32 (1989), pp. 56–57 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In the 1670s regular labourers on the Sudbury estate earned no more than 4s. a week: MSS volumes of payments, Derbyshire Record Office, Matlock, 410/M Box 2A. 165 and 166.
8 George Vernon’s steward’s accounts never used a surname without a prefix or Christian name, whereas they sometimes used the latter alone.
9 MS volume, ‘Rental and disbursements for Haslington, Cheshire’, 1663-65, kept by John Acton: Derbyshire Record Office, Matlock, 410/M Box 2A.161, entry immediately after item 52 (see n. 6, above). It was the discovery of this particular entry that prompted the measuring of samples of Crewe’s windows, enabling the direct comparison with those at Sudbury.
10 Ibid., item 49.
11 Large quantities of good quality kiln-fired bricks began to be produced at Sudbury in 1663. The first new structure, completed in 1664, was a long barn, close to the site for the new Hall: George Vernon’s ‘Creditor-Debtor Book’ (as n. 5, above), fols 30 and 36, in private collection. This barn would have been ideal for storing and working on the more valuable building materials.
12 Hinchcliffe, Revd Edward, Barthomley: in letters from aformer Rector to his eldest son (London, 1856), p. 327 Google Scholar.
13 Garnett, Oliver, Sudbury Hall, Derbyshire, National Trust Guide Book (London, 1998), p. 6 Google Scholar.
14 At Sudbury the pattern usually repeats every ten brick courses; Crewe has a twelve-course repeat.
15 Engraving of the entrance façade of Crewe Hall by W. R. Yoxall, 1742: private collection. The impact of the entrance steps has been diminished at Crewe by the later addition of a terrace, but Sudbury’s entrance steps remain virtually unaltered.
16 Sudbury’s porch was originally open, as Crewe’s has remained. Sudbury’s pair of solid front doors have been moved from their original position at the inner archway to the outside of the porch. The present, partly-glazed inner doors are of a later date and previously divided the length of the cross-passage.
17 George Vernon’s ‘Creditor-Debtor Book’ (as n. 5, above), fols 59 and 60; also Derbyshire Record Office, 410/M Box 2A.165, seven entries between 24 July 1672 and 11 September 1673.
18 In private collection; referred to in Harris, John, The Artist and the Country House from the Fifteenth Century to the Present Day, Sotheby’s exhibition catalogue (London, 1996), pp. 11 and 52Google Scholar. See also Harris, , The Artist and the Country House (London, 1979), p. 142, pl. 151Google Scholar.
19 The MS survey of Sudbury estate by William Fowler, 1659, shows the then existing manor house just to the south-east of the site of the present Hall: on loan to the National Trust at Sudbury Hall, Derbyshire.
20 George Vernon’s ‘Creditor-Debtor Book’ (as n. 5, above), fols 66, 67, 68.
21 Designed by Thomas Gardner of Uttoxeter in 1787: Garnett, op. cit., p. 31.
22 Barry’s, E. M. MS drawings on loan to the National Trust at Sudbury Hall, Derbyshire; ‘Crewe Hall, Cheshire’, Tlxe Builder, 19 June 1869, pp. 485-86Google Scholar.
23 The illustration of the Carved Parlour at Crewe, pls II–III in Richardson’s, C. J. Volume of Studies from Old English Mansions (London, 1841)Google Scholar, shows that the plasterwork overmantel was then very much as it is remains today, so it cannot have been significantly altered during the restoration works after the fire of 1886.
24 Bennitt, Mortimer in Country Life, CXXXVI, 23 July 1964, p. 226 Google Scholar.