Wennington Hall

Wennington Hall is a former country house in Wennington, a village in the City of Lancaster district in Lancashire, England. The house is a Grade II listed building and is now occupied by Wennington Hall School.HistoryIn its early history, Wennington Hall was the seat of William de Wennington. and in the 14th century, it passed to the Morley family. In 1674 the hall was sold to Henry Marsden, MP for Clitheroe. It descended to Henry Marsden, who lived at the hall with his younger brother John, known as "Silly Marsden", and their aunt. Henry died in 1780 from alcoholism and John was induced by his guardian aunt and her ambitious husband to sell the hall and buy Hornby Castle, Lancashire. Wennington was bought in 1788 by the Rev Anthony Lister, who took the surname Marsden. The hall was later sold to Richard Saunders in 1841.The present building on the site, designed by Lancaster architect Edward Graham Paley, was constructed in 1855–56 for Richard's son William Allen Francis Saunders, High Sheriff of Lancashire in 1862. After him it passed to Charles Morley Saunders and later William Morley Saunders. During the Second World War it housed the Wennington School, who moved to Ingmanthorpe Hall in Yorkshire at the end of the war.It is now a Lancashire Authority boarding school, Wennington Hall School, which was founded in 1954 for boys with learning or behavioural difficulties.