Belgrave Hall facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Belgrave Hall |
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Belgrave Hall: the garden front
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| General information | |
| Status | Heritage venue |
| Type | House |
| Architectural style | Queen Anne-style |
| Address | Church Road, Belgrave |
| Town or city | Leicester |
| Country | UK |
| Coordinates | 52°39′32″N 1°07′30″W / 52.6589°N 1.1249°W |
| Construction started | 1709 |
| Completed | 1713 |
| Client | Edmund Cradock |
| Owner | Leicester Museums |
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Listed Building – Grade II*
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| Designated: | 5 January 1950 |
| Reference #: | 1074030 |
Belgrave Hall is a beautiful old house in Belgrave, a part of Leicester. It was built in the Queen Anne-style and is considered a very important historic building. Today, it's a special heritage site.
Contents
A Look Back: History of Belgrave Hall
Belgrave Hall was built between 1709 and 1713. A wealthy businessman named Edmund Cradock had it built as a large family home. It sat on about 2 acres (8,000 square meters) of walled gardens.
Sadly, Edmund and his wife passed away soon after the house was finished. Over the years, Belgrave Hall had many different owners. Families like the Simons, Vann, and Ellis families lived there for many decades.
In 1936, Leicester City Council bought the Hall. It then became a museum for the public to visit. Recently, the council decided to use it as a heritage site. This means it's open only at certain times in the summer. You can also rent it for special events like weddings. Some people even go there for "ghost watches"!
How Belgrave Hall Was Built
When Belgrave Hall was built, Belgrave was a small village. It was about three miles from Leicester. Wealthy people started building big houses there. Belgrave Hall was one of the first.
The house has three floors. It was built in a simple, classic style. Blue and red bricks were used, creating a cool checkerboard pattern. You can see the Cradock family crest on the lead pipes. Some pipes even show the dates 1709 and 1713. This long building time might mean the plans changed while it was being built.
The front of the house has impressive iron gates. They have the letters 'EC' for Edmund Cradock. A brick wall hides the roof, making the front look very neat and rectangular.
The Cradock Family: First Owners
Edmund Cradock and his wife Anne likely moved into the house around 1713. But Edmund died just two years later in 1715. His will said his married daughter Jane would get money. His two younger children, Anne and Edmund, would share the rest.
The house was sold in 1716 to John Simons. This helped pay off the family's debts. The children were not happy with how slowly things moved. They also felt they didn't get as much money as they expected. There was even a court case about it. But John and Helen Simons kept the house.
The Simons and Vann Families
John Simons already owned land near the Hall. When he died in 1750, his younger son, Nicholas, inherited Belgrave Hall. But Nicholas soon mortgaged the property. He moved away and rented out the Hall.
In 1766, the Hall was put up for sale. William Southwell, a linen seller, bought it. He and his brother-in-law, William Vann, used the Hall for their hosiery (sock and stocking) business. They used the outbuildings for storage and offices.
When William Southwell died in 1767, Belgrave Hall went to his nephews, William and Richard Vann. They lived in the Hall with their younger brother, James. They continued the hosiery business.
In 1776, William Vann built a new house across the road. It was called Belgrave House. It was also a grand building. The gardens were then split between the two houses. William became a important local official in 1785.
After William and Richard died, James Vann took over the Hall. He also became an important official in 1803. None of the brothers had children. When James died in 1812, he left the Hall to his wife Hannah. After her, it would go to his cousin, Ann Hunt.
Hannah lived for many more years. By the time she died in 1844, Ann Hunt had also passed away. The Hall then went to Ann's family. They sold it in 1845 to John Ellis, a railway businessman.
John Ellis and His Daughters
John Ellis moved into Belgrave Hall in 1847. He was 58 and had a wife and seven daughters. He was a very important person in Leicester. He was involved in building railways and public life.
In 1828, he met George Stephenson, a famous railway builder. Ellis helped get a railway line built from Leicester to the coalfields. This line was finished in 1833.
John Ellis was a Quaker, a type of Christian, and a reformer. He became a Town Councillor in 1836. He also attended a big meeting against slavery in 1840. He was a director of the Midland Railway and helped combine it with another railway company. From 1848 to 1852, he represented Leicester in Parliament.
John Ellis died in 1862. His wife and five of his daughters continued to live at Belgrave Hall. These "Belgrave sisters" were very active in Leicester. They held social events and supported the suffragette movement. This movement fought for women's right to vote. Charlotte Ellis helped manage aid for the poor for nine years.
The sisters loved the gardens. Gertrude Ellis wrote about the beautiful flowers that had been blooming for a hundred years. They bought more land to create a park by the river. They also made a woodland garden. A cousin remembered a tiny room by the river. One of the sisters used it as a study. Gertrude wrote that the garden brought special joy to everyone. At Margaret's funeral in 1923, the sisters were called "public spirited citizens." They were loved and respected in Belgrave and Leicester. Margaret was the last daughter to die in 1923. They had lived at the Hall for 76 years.
Belgrave Hall as a Museum and Heritage Site
After Margaret's death, the Hall was sold to Thomas Morley. He was another hosiery maker from Leicester. In 1936, the Corporation of Leicester bought it. They opened it as a museum and public gardens.
The museum was set up to look like a home from the 1700s and early 1800s. It showed how a well-off family and their servants lived. In 2005, more details were added about the servants' areas. This showed the different lives of rich families and their staff in the Victorian era.
Across the road from the Hall is parkland. It used to be part of the Hall's gardens. Now it's called Belgrave Gardens and is open to everyone. The two acres of gardens behind the Hall are also open to the public. You can visit them on Wednesdays and the first full weekend of each month during summer. These gardens still have features that John Ellis first created in 1850. They include formal gardens, walled kitchen gardens, and glasshouses. Old outbuildings have been turned into a small "craft village." Here, local artists have workshops. The gardens also have statues from other old Leicestershire gardens.
Mysterious Statues
Belgrave Hall has four statues. They are part of a group of 16 statues bought by the Vann family before 1790. These statues came from Italy. They show different gods and goddesses from old stories.
When Hannah Vann died in 1842, she hoped the statues would stay with the family. Twelve of them were moved to another family home. People there called them the "Twelve Apostles." But most of them have been lost over time.
The four statues that remain at Belgrave Hall are very large. Two are in the formal gardens. They might be statues of Ceres (goddess of farming) and Hercules (a hero). The other two stand near where the gates to Belgrave House used to be. Both are statues of the Greek god Telamon. They might be what an old writer described as "two Emperors."
Paranormal Activity at Belgrave Hall
Belgrave Hall became famous in 1999 for something spooky! Two ghostly figures were seen on security cameras outside the Hall. At first, some thought it was paranormal. But experts later said it was probably just a falling leaf.
Even after this was explained, the building stayed popular with ghost hunters. The team from Ghost Hunters International thought the figures were likely people in reflective jackets. The TV show Most Haunted also investigated the Hall in 2003. Celebrities Vic Reeves and Nancy Sorrell joined them. Belgrave Hall was also featured on the show Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files in 2012.
See also
- Grade II* listed buildings in Leicester
- List of museums in Leicestershire
- Abbey Pumping Station, Leicester's Museum of Science and Technology (1 km to south)
- National Space Centre, space and aerospace museum, (1 km to south)
