Wroxall Abbey
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wroxall Abbey is a substantial Victorian mansion house situated at Wroxall, Warwickshire which has been converted for use as an hotel and country club. It is a Grade II listed building.
The estate was occupied for some 400 years by the Priory of Wroxall until the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII in 1536.
In 1544 the King granted the estate to Robert Burgoyne of Sutton, Bedfordshire(d 1545) who had been one of the King's Commissioners for the Dissolution. His son Robert (d 1613), High Sheriff of Warwickshire in 1597, built a manor house in Elizabethan style adjacent to the Priory ruins.
The Burgoyne family ( later Burgoyne Baronets) occupied the manor until 1713 when they sold it together with 1850 acres, to Sir Christopher Wren.
Although it is unlikely that Wren himself ever lived there, the house was occupied from tome to time by members of his family, including his greatgreatgrandson Christopher Roberts Wren, High Sheriff of Warwickshire in 1820.Later descendants sold the estate in 1861 to James Dugdale, High Sheriff of Warwickshire 1868, who demolished the old manor house and replaced it with an imposing mansion, thereafter to be known as Wroxall Abbey, in the Victorian Gothic style.
The chapel adjacent to the Hall and known as Wren's Chapel is Grade I listed building.
The house was let and was occupied as a school from 1936 to 1995, and following a period of neglect was acquired by commercial owners and converted into a hotel in 2001
[edit] References
- A History of the County of Warwick, Volume 3 (1945) pp215-220 Wroxall from British History Online
- English Heritage; Images of England- 1990 description