DRAKELOW AFTER THE GRESLEYS
The contents of Drakelow Hall were sold in July, 1931, and with the consent of the auctioneers I had the privilege as president-elect of Burton Natural History and Archaeological Society, of taking a party of members around the Hall before the sale took place.
There were many panelled rooms with antique furniture, china, etc., and also a tapestry room. Five oaken beds dated from the reigns of Queen Elizabeth I and James I, while two early 17th century ebony beds were probably brought back from Spain by Walsingham Gresley (1585-1633) who was attached to the British Embassy in Madrid.
There were several pieces of armour and various weapons and a notable exhibit was a contemporary model of a 74-gun ship of the early 18th century, possibly the model of a ship in which Sir Nigel (sixth baronet) served. A valued heirloom was the Gresley Jewel, a fine specimen of the 16th century work in the form of a pendant, presented by Elizabeth I to Catherine Sutton, daughter of Lord Dudley, on the occasion of her marriage to Sir George Gresley, K.B.
There were many family portraits from the 16th century onwards as well as numerous other paintings. Many of these portraits are reproduced in the de-luxe edition of ‘The Gresleys of Drakelow’, by F.C. Madan (1899).
Following the sale of the contents of the Hall, an attempt was made to turn the Hall and park into a country club under the auspices of the Automobile Racing Association. It was proposed to open a “junior” road circuit of about three miles in the park by Whitsuntide, 1932, a further eight-mile circuit to be established later for motor racing.
The Hall was to become an A.R.A. country club house, the existing gardens and woodlands to be preserved in their original state. Tennis courts, a bowling green and a bathing pool were to be constructed while there would be boating and fishing facilities on a two and a half mile stretch of the River Trent with rights over a further one and a half miles of the river, giving a total stretch almost equal in length to the Boat Race course, where races and regattas could be held.
The mansion was to be altered to provide dining rooms, lounges, billiards rooms, card rooms, writing and reading rooms, a cocktail and other bars, tea rooms, dressing rooms, a gymnasium with skilled attendants of both sexes, and hairdressing salons.
There would be residential facilities, for there were already 14 bedrooms and nine bathrooms, in addition to those reserved for the staff.
Some of the stabling was to be retained for use as a riding school and two coach houses would be turned into squash racquet courts. The construction of an indoor lawn tennis court in the stable yard was under consideration and it was proposed to lay out an 18 hole golf course in the park.
For all these facilities ordinary membership would cost £5 5s 0d. p.a., while life membership could be purchased for £52 10s 0d An associate membership however, would cost only £1 1s (one guinea) p.a.
The official opening of the club was arranged to take place on Whit Monday (May 16th) 1932, and the attractions included a motor cycle dirt-track of 1,000 yards on which ‘Cannon Ball’ Baker would set up the first record. A motor cycle gymkhana was to be arranged by the Burton Motor Cycle and Light Car Club, and there were equestrain competitions and a boxing display.
The ground and Hall were open to the public on payment of 1s 3d but Whit Monday, 1932, proved to be a very wet day. The attendance was poor and the scheme proved a failure, the “Country Club Company” being evicted from the premises on 16th July, 1932.
The outlying portions of the Drakelow Estate which covered 707 acres, were sold on 19th January, 1933, and the remainder, including the “stately Elizabethan Mansion and magnificently timbered deer park” was offered for sale at the Queen’s Hotel on December 19th, 1933. The auctioneers stated that the Hall, though mainly Elizabethan in character, had been altered and restored at different periods but never actually rebuilt.
The accommodation on the ground floor included an entrance hall, 45 ft. by 18ft., with oakpanelled walls and a marble fire place, a tapestry room, 38ft. by 17ft. 6ins., with mullioned window and a corridor to a china lobby with Jacobean oak panelled walls. The windows of the breakfast room contained coats of arms in stained glass and the oak panelled walls are enriched with armorial bearings. The music room, 32ft. by 18ft., had pine panelled walls and doors of walnut with walnut burr panels. The walls of the drawing room were covered with fine green silk damask and there was a superb mantel piece of white marble and Blue John. There was also an oak panelled study and billiards room with mullioned bay windows containing glass coats of arms.
The most interesting feature of Drakelow Hall was undoubtedly the dining room known as the ‘Painted Room’. This was a room painted in the 18th century with a continuous landscape to create the illusion that the visitor was not in a room at all but outside, surrounded with picturesque scenery. A cornice was replaced by a coved ceiling which enabled the artist to run his trees up into an open sky, and real trellis work was set around the room and its apertures while the fireplace was disguised as a grotto.
The paintings represented scenery in the Peak district and were attributed to Pauly Sandby. Anna Seward, the ‘Swan of Lichfield’, who visited the Hall in 1794, thus described her impressions:
“Sir Nigel hath adorned one of his rooms with singular happiness. One side is painted with forest scenery whose majestic trees arch over the coved ceiling. The opposite side represents a Peak valley, while the front shows a prospect of more distant country. The chimney piece represents a grotto formed of spars, ores and shells. Read palings, breast high and painted green, are placed a few inches from the walls and increase the deception. In these are little wicket gates that half open, tempt the visitor to ascend the forest banks”.
It is pleasing to add that this room is now preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
An old oak staircase rising in two flights and lit by a lofty arched window containing stained glass coats of arms of the Gresley family led to ten principal bedrooms, five bathrooms, a boudoir and dressing room, all of which were on the first floor. There were also 14 bedrooms and two bathrooms on the second floor.
The domestic offices on the ground floor included a large kitchen scullery, butler’s pantry, butler’s bedroom, housekeeper’s sitting room, kitchen maid’s room, two valets’ rooms, bathroom, larder, game larder, two still rooms, laundry and dairy.
The outbuildings included store rooms, game larders and brewhouse, while a detached block of stable buildings comprised three loose boxes, stabling for 21 horses, a saddle room and a heated garage, together with a gardener’s cottage.
The estate was purchased by Sir Albert Ball, of Nottingham, in conjunction with Messrs, Marshall Bros. (Timber Merchants) Limited, for £12,500.
The extensive pleasure grounds adjoining the Hall were surrounded by a protective belt of trees and some of the hollies and yews were trimmed to a height of thirty feet. There were several separate small gardens and pleasaunces which were probably laid out in the 18th century.
Of these the most notable was the round garden, in the middle of which was a circular stone edged basin with a central fountain in the form of a mermaid blowing water through a conch or shell. This old garden was improved by Sir Robert Gresley (eleventh baronet) who placed the fountain there. There were also several large stone vases filled with flowering plants.
In another garden, four wide grass walks converged upon a small stone basin also ornamented with a fountain. There was also a long box garden and a walled rose garden laid out in the reign of William III. The ‘temple’ at the end of the rose garden was built from the designs of Reginald Bloomfield, author of “The Formal Gardens of England”. Paintings of these gardens by Beatrice Parsons (1905) are still in existence. All the gardens were quite separate and at one time a staff of 30 gardeners was required for their maintenance.
In January, 1934, Drakelow Park and Warren Farm were purchased from Sir Albert Ball and Messrs. Marshall Bros, by Mr. C.F. Gothard of Bearwood House, Burton-on-Trent, who as a boy had been permitted by the Gresley family to ride in the park and fish the river Trent where it passed through the Drakelow estate of which he thus acquired pleasant memories.
The hall was carefully examined to see if any part of it could be modernised and made habitable, but acting upon expert advice it was decided that the mansion would have to be demolished and this was done.
Mr. Gothard also purchased separately the Barn Farm and the Grove Farm with outlying woods and other land, so that with his purchase of the park, Warren Farm and adjacent woodlands, almost the whole of the former Drakelow estate as it stood after the first World War passed into his possession.
Extensive stabling premises and other outbuildings forming the coach yard of the hall were left standing and part of this block, comprising mainly some of the harness rooms, was converted into a farm house by the new owner who was interested in farming, the preservation of wild life and also in game and wildfowl shooting. In course of time he hoped to take up farming on a larger scale, to build a small modern house near the site of the hall, and to beautify the banks of the river with flowering trees and shrubs. He farmed the whole of the park during the 1939-45 Second World War, but unfortunately the prospective development plans did not come to fruition.
In 1933, there was an attempt to sell Drakelow Hall and its estates as a set of separate lots, the sales brochure of which can be seen in the ‘For Sale’ section, but the sale was unsuccessful. There followed, an unsuccessful attempt to turn it into an exclusive country club. Like many of Burton’s surrounding stately homes, it was demolished shortly afterwards.
Drakelow Park and Warren Farm were eventually acquired by the British Electricity Authority in 1950 to become the site of Drakelow Power Station.