Harlaxton Manor

Harlaxton Manor in 1880

Harlaxton Manor, built in 1837, is a manor house located in Harlaxton, Lincolnshire, England. Its architecture, which combines elements of Jacobean and Elizabethan styles with symmetrical Baroque massing, renders the mansion unique among surviving Jacobethan manors.

The manor is a popular location for filming. Exterior and interior shots have been featured in the films The Ruling Class, The Last Days of Patton, The Lady and the Highwayman, The Haunting and The Young Visiters. More recently, the building was used as a site in the reality television series Australian Princess.

The manor currently serves as the British campus for the University of Evansville and partners with Western Kentucky University.

History

Harlaxton Manor in 2005

Harlaxton is first recorded in the Domesday Book as Harleston.

The current mansion is the second Harlaxton Manor. The first was built on a different site during the 14th century and was used as a hunting lodge by John of Gaunt. By 1619, Sir Daniel de Ligne purchased the manor. The original house was deserted after 1780; it was inherited by Gregory Gregory, and was torn down in 1857.

The current house was built by Gregory from 1837 to 1845 and helped usher in a renaissance of Elizabethan architecture. The original architect, Anthony Salvin, was replaced by William Burn, who is responsible for its interior detailing. Upon Gregory's death, the manor passed to his cousin George Gregory and then in 1860 to a distant relative, John Sherwin-Gregory. Upon the death of Sherwin's wife in 1892, it passed to his godson Thomas Pearson-Gregory, who allowed it to fall into disrepair.

The manor passed through several sets of disparate hands in the twentieth century. Abandoned by 1935, it was purchased two years later by Violet Van der Elst, a businesswoman and inventor, who made her money from developing the first brushless shaving cream and made her name by campaigning against capital punishment. She restored the house and had it wired for electricity. During the Second World War it was requisitioned by the Royal Air Force as the officers' mess for RAF Harlaxton and later to house a company of the 1st Airborne Division. In 1948, Harlaxton was purchased by The Society of Jesus, who used it as a novitiate. They in turn sold the manor, while retaining rights to some of the lands, to Stanford University in 1965. The University of Evansville began using the property in 1971 as its British campus, but it was owned by William Ridgway, a trustee of the university, until 1986. Immediately after the purchase, the University of Evansville began renovating the entire facility.

Present day

Since 1984, Harlaxton Manor has also been the site of the annual Harlaxton Symposium, an interdisciplinary symposium on medieval art, literature, and architecture. it also serves as a study abroad university for english majors from Western Kentucky University.

External links

• Harlaxton Manor Website
• Harlaxton College website
• Archive newsreel of Harlaxton Manor interior and exterior - 1939
• Flickr photos tagged Harlaxton Manor
• Photos of Harlaxton Manor and surrounding area on geograph
• History and Heritage
• Harlaxton Symposium