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Important anniversaries

Two important anniversaries attach themselves to Kelham Hall this year.

It is 140 years since the building of the present hall was begun and 25 year since it was acquired by its present occupants, Newark and Sherwood District Council.

Kelham Hall is considered a masterpiece of high Victorian Gothic architecture, entirely asymmetrical, with a gloriously irregular skyline, and crowning 'grandiloquent' towers.

It was designed by (Sir) George Gilbert Scott, (noted for many fine Victorian churches) and has come to be seen as the prototype for his most famous and enduring work, the Midland Hotel at St. Pancras station in London.

The present hall at Kelham, however, is only the most recent in a succession of three equally fine buildings which have stood on the site.

Indeed, the building of the present house was only made necessary by a disastrous fire in 1857 which swept away the fine Palladian mansion shown in the picture: if this fire had not occurred, Kelham Hall might still today be regarded as a Georgian rather than a Victorian masterpiece.

The Sutton family (with whom the house is most closely associated) is known to have been present in the parish of Kelham as long ago as the 13th Century, although their first house was located in neighbouring Averham.

During the Civil War Robert Sutton played a conspicuous part in the defence of Newark and was subsequently rewarded by Charles I with the title Lord Lexington.

By this time references to a house at Kelham were already starting to appear, and it is generally said that the 'Kelham House' to which Charles I was taken following his surrender at Southwell was a forerunner of Kelham Hall.

The Suttons' principal residence at Averham was no longer habitable, it having been burned by the Parliamentarians during their occupation of the villages around Newark.

Following the restoration and the awarding of compensation to the family, it is thought probable that their house at Kelham was further enlarged and enhanced. When the noted traveller Celia Fiennes saw it in 1697 she considered it "very pretty, with walls and towers that look very well".

Later in the reign of William and Mary (before 1702) the house was severely damaged by fire. It was as a result of this fire that the second Kelham Hall (pictured) came into being.

It was constructed between 1728 and 1731 to designs by one of the leading architects of the day, John Sanderson (the architect who also worked for Sir James Dashwood at Kirtlington Park in Oxfordshire and the Duke of Bedford at Stratton Park, Hampshire).

According to accounts held at Belvoir Castle, the new house at Kelham cost £2,870 with the mason being William Handley (1691-1753), a forebear of the successful Handley banking and brewing family of Newark.

An illustration of this house from John Neale's Views of the seats of noblemen and gentlemen in England dated 1821 and reproduced here shows a plain three storey central block flanked by two wings (probably added later).

The building medium was brick with a bold cornice and stone casings to the windows.

The Duke and Duchess of Rutland (into whose family the Kelham estate had now devolved) stayed there quite often, finding it a pleasant alternative to Belvoir Castle.

When the duchess died in 1734 the property passed to her second son, Lord Robert Manners who duly added the surname Sutton.

It is from this period that the name Manners-Sutton, so long associated with Kelham and its fortunes, came into being. Kelham Hall as it appeared in the 18th Century attracted comment from a number of noted travellers and diarists.

The Hon. John Byng, in his Torrington Diaries includes Kelham in an account of a tour he took through the Midlands in 1789.

He was not particularly impressed: "Kelham House.... is a staring ill-sash'd, long-windowed thing, and much too near the river."

However, Laird, writing in 1820, is somewhat more appreciative. In his Topographical and Historical Description of the county of Nottingham he notes: "This hall is a plain but elegant building.... standing in a handsome lawn on the banks of the Trent.

The lawn and grounds, though not very extensive, are yet extremely pleasing and kept in good order; and the view of Newark across the river forms a fine prospect from the house."

In the 1840s a number of important improvements were begun at the hall with the 1844 Notts directory reporting that it was to be now fully fronted in stone, enlarged and adorned with towers. Gas and water were being laid on and an ornamental balcony formed around the roof.

A large neo-Jacobean kitchen wing was also added at this time, probably to the designs of Lewis Cubitt. Just as these works were being completed, however, disaster struck. In the early hours of November 27, 1857, a fire broke out, thought to have been started accidentally in some wood shavings by workmen.

In Newark, inhabitants of the town were woken by the ringing of church bells as a red glow in the night clearly showed where the fire was centred.

The militia and police force assembled in the Market Place and together with the town fire brigade and many local people began making their way out to Kelham.

The fire engine arrived soon after 3am, and one from Southwell an hour or so later. They managed to keep the fire away from Cubitt's new kitchen wing, but it proved impossible to save the main building.

Surveying the damage the morning after, the Newark Advertiser reported: "The music room, drawing room and billiard room were completely swept away. Upstairs, valuable furniture, with drapings of damask and point lace was burnt and damage to the extent of £15,000 was done in a very few hours."

Mr Manners-Sutton and his wife were on holiday in Italy at the time of the fire and first heard of the disaster in the English Club in Naples where their acquaintances had read about it in the newspapers.

They returned to England immediately and being well insured, immediately set about rebuilding. There can have been little hesitation over the choice of architect.

At the time of the fire, alterations to the house were being supervised by George Gilbert Scott (later knighted for his work on the Albert Memorial in London) and he was charged with rebuilding Kelham in his favoured Italian-Gothic style.

Scott made his plans during 1858, the foundations were laid by William Cubitt and Co in 1859, the work (as far as it was ever to progress) was almost finished by 1861.

The resulting phoenix of red Retford brick so elaborately, learnedly and expensively Gothic, still has the power to surprise travellers crossing the Trent at Kelham today, and has become one of Nottinghamshire's most remarkable landmarks.

ABOVE: Kelham Hall in 1821 as drawn by J.P. Neale. This house was destroyed by fire in 1857, leading to the present Gothic mansion which occupies the site today.

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