Hodnet Hall

Hodnet Hall is a country house and estate in Hodnet, Shropshire, England.

View of the hall from lake

Hodnet Old Hall was a timber-framed manor house surrounded by the park which was recorded on Christopher Saxton's Map of Shropshire in the late 16th century. [1] Historically it was owned by the Heber family, the family of the noted English cleric Reginald Heber. In 1752 a Richard Heber received the manor and estate as a bequest from a cousin of his wife. On Richard Heber's death in 1766 his brother, named Reginald, who had taken Holy Orders and was co-rector of the parish of Malpas in Cheshire, inherited the estate.[2] The old hall was demolished in 1870 when a new hall in the neo-Elizabethan style was built.

It was the boyhood home of Robert Heber-Percy, known as "the Mad Boy" and "an English eccentric in the grand tradition".[3]

In the 20th century the hall was used as a convalescent hospital during the world wars, and in World War II there was an airfield in the grounds for the storage and dispersal of aircraft from Ternhill and RAF Shawbury.[1]

Today the hall is particularly noted for its gardens, created in 1922 when rare trees, shrubs and a chain of seven lakes and pools was added. The gardens contains rhododendrons, camellias, crocuses, daffodils and magnolias.[4] They are open to the public on Sundays and Bank Holidays from early April to late September.