Hoar Cross Hall

Hoar Cross Hall is a 19th-century country mansion situated near the villages of Hoar Cross and Hamstall Ridware, Staffordshire which is operated as a hotel and spa, together with facilities for conferences and weddings. It is a Grade II listed building.The original Hoar Cross estate comprised 490 acres and was bought for 18 pence in 1450 during Henry VI’s reign, including a moat and a drawbridge common in Tudor estate houses. It is reported that onlookers would simply turn up, just to set eyes on the building. It survived for nearly 300 years before being demolished in 1740.From the early 17th century, Hoar Cross had been the first seat of the Ingram family whose principal residence was Temple Newsam, Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire. In 1661 Henry Ingram was brought up as Baron Ingram and Viscount of Irvine. On the death of the 9th Viscount in 1778 the Viscountcy became extinct. The estates descended to his daughters and in 1841 to Hugo Charles Meynell (grandson of Hugo Meynell and son of Sir Hugo Meynell who had married Elizabeth Ingram in 1782). Upon inheritance Meynell incorporated "Ingram" into his surname to become Meynell Ingram.In 1793 Hugo Meynell built what was to be called the ‘Old Hall’, a manor house for use as an occasional hunting lodge in the glorious Needwood Forest. This provides a real link to today’s property, which still features the Meynell Room.When he died in 1808, Hugo’s eldest son, Hugo Francis Meynell Ingram inherited the estate. Not much changed at Hoar Cross until 1863 when he set about an ambitious construction plan for a new hall to celebrate his marriage to Lady Charlotte Wood,