Worksop Manor is a stately home in the Dukeries area of Nottinghamshire. Traditionally, the Lord of the Manor of Worksop may assist a British monarch at his or her coronation by providing a glove and putting it on the monarch's right hand and supporting his or her right arm.
Worksop Manor was the seat of the ancient Lords of Worksop.
A house was built in the late 16th century for the George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury, and probably designed by Robert Smythson. It was for some time the prison of Mary, Queen of Scots. The building was burnt down in 1761. At the same time Smythson also designed the associated Worksop Manor Lodge which survived in substantially original form until 2007 when it was burnt down (probably by local kids) and it is currently being restored.
James Paine was commissioned to build a replacement for the Elizabethan mansion. He planned a roughly square mansion with a vast hall in the central courtyard which would have been one of the largest houses ever built in England, had it been completed. Only one wing had been finished when work stopped on the house in 1767, but even this was on a palatial scale.
It descended by marriage to the Duke of Norfolk, in whose family it remained until 1840.
Following a fire the estate was sold to the Duke of Newcastle of nearby Clumber Park for £375,000, who ruthlessly asset stripped the site. He demolished the main wing of the house with gunpowder, having sold off the roof lead and some fittings, as he was only interested in adding the land to his own estate. In spite of the money received from salvage and timber he made a huge loss on the purchase which seems to have been animated by anti-Catholic sentiment, the Duke of Norfolk having been a leading Catholic aristocrat. After a number of years the surviving parts of the house, that is the stable, the service wing and part of the eastern end of the main range, were reformed into a new mansion (pictured here), which was occupied for a number of years by Lord Foley. This still survives.
Since at least the first decade of the 20th century the estate has been home to the Worksop Manor Stud, which breeds thoroughbred horses. [1].