Ruddington Hall

Ruddington Hall is a country house standing in the grounds of a garden in Ruddington, Nottinghamshire, England. Ruddington Hall has been included in the art work of Nikolaus Pevsner alongside the Elizabethan Wollaton Hall and Newstead Abbey, ancestral home of Lord Byron.It is imbued with Pevsner's classical ethic of "calm grandeur, and monumental simplicity". Ruddington Hall has an interesting history which is briefly explained below.History19th centuryRuddington Hall was built in 1860. It was designed as a country retreat for Thomas Cross, a wealthy industrialist and banker from Bolton. Together with his wife and some nine servants, he lived here for 19 years.Ruddington was an important centre for the production of the world-famous Nottingham lace, and in 1880 the hall was purchased by a successful American merchant, Philo Laos Mills. Mills was appointed High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire in 1897. He died in 1905, aged seventy-three.20th centuryThe tradition of ownership by self-made men was continued in 1907 by a Major John Ashworth. As well as developing a flourishing timber importing business, Ashworth, Kirk & Co. Ltd, he was renowned as one of the finest riflemen in the country. This no doubt deterred many a poacher.In the light of today's concerns about global warming, it's interesting to note that under Ashworth's ownership, the hall's boiler and fireplaces burnt each quarter thirty tons of coal! In 1931, Ruddington Hall was purchased by Dorothea Kate Forman-Hardy, a member of Nottingham's well known newspaper and printing dynasty.