Exton Hall

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Exton Hall is an English country house on the western edge of the village of Exton, Rutland, England.

It was the family seat of the family of Sir James Harington and later the Noel family, Earls of Gainsborough for almost four hundred years. The mansion burnt down in 1810 and is now a ruin which has grand gables and beautiful chimneys like many Elizabethan houses.

The present Exton Hall was built in the 19th century close to the ruins of the original mansion. It contains a Roman Catholic chapel which is still in regular use.

In 1948 the Earl of Gainsborough gave the United Steel Companies a lease to quarry ironstone in the Park. Sundew, the world's largest walking dragline worked the land from 1957 until 1974 when mining ceased. Sundew then slowly walked to Corby. Material was moved by a narrow-gauge railway with a loop of nine miles and a link to the exchange sidings at what is now Rutland Railway Museum's site.

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