Sutton Hall - oldminer.co.uk

By far the most famous of the Sutton families in its thousand year history were the Lekes (Leakes), who with ten generations owned the hall and its estates for three hundred and thirty three years. The family were always loyal to the crown, but this allegiance was at times costly, both in terms of money and in human life.

Sir Francis Leke was one of these men, he was Earl Scarsdale at the time of the English Civil War and was one of the loyal supporters of King Charles. He lost two sons in the war and as a result of his support for the king he was fined £18,000 to restore his estates after they were sequestrated by Oliver Cromwell this was paid by his friends. The family’s royalist support did have its rewards, John Leke was Knighted by Henry VIII at Lille. Sir Francis Leke was created Baronet by James I in 1611, made Lord Deincourt in 1624 and Earl Scarsdale just prior to the Civil War.

After the execution of Charles I in 1649 Lord Deincourt was very disillusioned and had his grave dug and after clothing himself in sackcloth each Friday evening would lie in the grave to pray and meditate.

The brother of John Leke, Thomas, had a daughter Elizabeth who married John Hardwick and was the mother of 'Bess of Hardwick' the prolific builder of other local stately homes.

The hall was twice owned by men who adopted their wives names to continue the family line of ownership of the house, its estates and titles. Edward Hilary took his wife’s name of Grey and Job Hart Price took his wife’s name Clarke.

In 1820 after Anne Price and Walter Butler died without any heirs the hall was sold to the son of the entrepreneur and inventor of the spinning frame Sir Richard Arkwright, Richard Arkwright who lived at Willersly Castle. There were now four branches of the Arkwright family. Sutton, Willersly Castle, Hampton Court in County Hereford and Knutston Hall in County Northampton, the squires of Sutton being the senior branch,

The Ark wrights owned the hall and estates and suffered mixed fortunes until 1919 when the hall, lands and buildings were sold at auction by William Arkwright. It is said that William suffered a horrendous fall from a horse in his younger days and was a cripple thereafter. He sold the estates to move to the warmer climes of southern England on the proceeds. The 'Hall and Grounds', lot number 37 was withdrawn from the auction at £12,600, the bidding having started at £8,000.

The hall was not sold until the 1920's when the building firm of Haslam Ltd. Purchased the hall to demolish it and use for building materials. The Adams fireplaces which were inlaid with Blue John were stripped from the house and sent to America to a Philadelphia museum along with the ornate staircases, where they still are today. The roof was stripped of lead, the ornate ceilings which were designed by some of the finest Italian craftsmen were removed to take out the wooden joists and some of the stone was used to build houses in the Somersall and Brampton area, leaving only the shell of this once proud Georgian building.

In 1946 the building had deteriorated to such an extent that it was planned to demolish it, three days before the demolition machinery were due to move in on the hall the shell was saved for eternity by the purchase of the hall by Sir Osbert Sitwell who was persuaded to act by a local resident Harold Taylor. The hall was later given over to the Department of the environment in the late 1960's. In 1971 emergency repairs were started to secure the building from further decay.

The cost of this work was estimated at around £30,000, the money was secured for the work to begin. (£5,000 was forthcoming from the Derbyshire County Council) and later during 1992 the building was finally secured and the plaster mouldings left after the removal of the ceilings and fireplaces were sealed and preserved and secure ornate iron bars were placed in all the window mullions and it is now possible to walk inside the shell of a building 'which is the finest of its type and era in the Midlands'.

The Hall is unusual in so much as it has three formal facades the fourth being the church. This meant that the hall could be viewed from three of the four sides, unlike many other houses of the period.

From the Domesday survey of Derbyshire Circa. 1086 for Sudtune.

In Sudtune Stienulf had four carucates of land for geld and land for five ploughs.

The Lord has one plough there, and six villanes and one bordar with one plough.

One mill of fifteen shillings is there and eight acres of meadow and wood pasturable, half a mile in length, and three or four furlongs in bredth.

1086 Roger Poicton, apparently reverted to the crown.

1297 Richard de Grey of Sandiacre, by marriage with Lucia the heiress daughter of Robert, whose sister was mother to Richard.

'There was a Sir Nicholas Leke (so the tradition says), who was a Crusader and who, before he started for the Holy Land broke a ring with his wife each retaining half, as a token of each others love and fidelity. When among the Saracens he was taken prisoner'. Keeping him hostage for a ransom as they supposed him to be a very wealthy man. 'And kept for many years. As he lay in his dungeon one night he prayed to the Virgin that he might see his beloved Sutton once more, if only in a dream but as he awoke that morning he was sitting within the porch of the church where his prayers had so often commingled with his wife's in days long long ago, and close to his home. But the servants spurned him, in his rags and filth, from the door and knew him not. Then he sent in the tiny fragment of ring to his lady, and soon a head, whitened by winters of hope deferred, was nestling on his breast'.

The 'Legend' of Sir Nicholas Leke is one that in a way cannot be put into historical context, as the man to whom it relates was not born until the reign of Elizabeth I (1558-1603) and we also know that the Lekes were not holding Sutton Hall and its estates until after the fourth and last Crusade. There was at this time no Sir Nicholas Leke in the senior line of the house, but this does not mean he did not exist at that time as he may have been a fifth or sixth son of the line before it ceased to be of Nottinghamshire.

One thing that is true however, is that Sir Nicholas Leke left a dole of loaves (a charitable gift of bread) to the poor. 'As a testimony of his gratitude for his marvellous escape'. The gift only ceased with the death of the fourth and last Earl of Scarsdale.

The dole left by his will was for eight bushels of wheat to be baked into loaves and given out to the poor people of Sutton, Duckmanton and Temple Normanton on Saint Nicholas' Day forever. The dole was further increased to between eighteen and twenty loads of wheat baked and given to the poor. The loaves weighed around two and a half pounds each and were stamped with the letter 'N'.

An heir of Sir Nicholas once neglected to comply with the provisions of his will and on the 'morrow of Saint Nicholas' day' a deep well situated between the hall and the church overflowed and did a considerable amount of damage in the vicinity as its level continued to rise. The conscious stricken heir immediately ordered the ovens to be lit and the dole baked, henceforth the water in the well subsided.