Blithfield Hall
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Blithfield Hall, pronounced Bliffield, is a privately owned Grade I listed country house in Staffordshire, England, south west of Uttoxeter and north of Rugeley.
The Hall, with its embattled towers and walls, has been the home of the Bagot family since the late fourteenth century. The present house is mainly Elizabethan, with a Gothic façade added in the 1820's to a design probably by John Buckler.
In 1945 the Hall, then in a neglected and dilapidated state, was sold by the 5th Lord Bagot together with its 650 acre estate to South Staffordshire Waterworks Company, whose intention was to build a reservoir. The 5th Baron died in 1946 having sold many of the contents of the house. His successor and cousin Caryl Bagot repurchased the property and 30 acres of land from the water company and began an extensive programme of renovation and restoration.
The 6th Baron died in 1961 and bequeathed the property to his widow, Nancy, Lady Bagot. In 1986 the Hall was divided into four separate houses. The main part which incorporates the Great Hall is owned by the Bagot Jewitt Trust.
Nancy, Lady Bagot and the Bagot Jewitt family remain in residence.
On a Monday in early September every year, villagers from nearby Abbots Bromley visit the Hall to perform the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance.
The reservoir was built in 1953.
Blithfield Hall is known as the home of a breed of goat, the Bagot goat.
[edit] References
- Blithfield Hall - A descriptive Survey and History Nancy, Lady Bagot (1966) English Life Publications