History of Hare Hill

Close up of a face mask on a volcanic stone ornamental urn at Hare Hill, Cheshire. | © National Trust Images/David Levenson

Within the gentle, rolling Cheshire countryside which rises to the sandstone outcrop of Alderley Edge lies the Hare Hill estate. A fine example of a small early-19th century country estate of 276 acres, it is the setting for a turn of the 19th century villa, Hare Hill House, which is not in National Trust ownership.

Disputed territory

The Hare Hill landscape evolved out of an area of unenclosed land. Once known as Broadheath Common, from the early 16th century until after the end of the Civil War, it was the subject of a lengthy territorial dispute between the wealthy Stanley family of Alderley and the Leycester family of Tabley. A farmhouse stood on the site of the present hall, and Hare Hill gets its first mention in the Parish Register of 1642, when Mr John Hobson is recorded as living at ‘ye Hare Hill’. Eventually, ownership was finally devised to Peter Leycester (1614–78), who enclosed it from the common in 1662.

The Hibbert family

In 1797, Sir John Fleming Leycester (1762–1827) sold the land on which Hare Hill now stands to Mr William Hibbert Esq. (1759–1844), who built a ‘Handsome modern Mansion’ and laid out a small parkland around it. William was the sixth son of Robert Hibbert, a West India Merchant and Manchester cotton manufacturer. In the early 1780s, William went to Jamaica, joining his brothers who were partners in their uncle’s slave factorage business in Kingston. Slave factors purchased enslaved West African people from ships and resold them to planters. The Hibberts also held commercial partnerships and had their own plantations in Jamaica, which were worked by enslaved people. The Hibberts were prominent and outspoken opponents of the slavery abolition movement and clashed with leading abolitionist William Wilberforce.

In 1782 William Hibbert won a share of £20,000 in the Benefit Lottery – the equivalent of almost £2 million today – and returned to England. The first English state lottery had taken place in 1694, and during the 18th century state lotteries became a popular form of gambling and a reliable means of raising funds for government coffers. William then became a partner in the family’s London-based West Indian merchant house, which shipped, insured and distributed commodities from the Caribbean, including sugar.

While the main family house was in Clapham Common, London, Hare Hill became William Hibbert’s country estate. William built Hare Hill Hall and landscaped its grounds, installing culverts to manage water across the estate, and a cascade near to Mount Farm. He laid carriageways for access to the hall, and historic maps suggest that woodland planting was done on the edges of both North and South Park between 1819 and 1840. Together this created the parkland which visitors enjoy today.

William’s eldest son, William Tetlow Hibbert (1792–1881), inherited Hare Hill in 1844. He had joined his father and other family members in the London business and was one of several members of the Hibbert family who received substantial compensation (about £103,000, equivalent to almost £7 million today) from the British government when transatlantic slavery was abolished. He also had colonial interests in Canada, and in the Colonial Banking Company of the West Indies, which was a forerunner of Barclays Bank, and he was a director of the Royal Assurance Company. He left a personal estate of over £165,000 (equivalent to about £11 million today) at the time of his death in 1881. In 1879, he had sold Hare Hill to Francis Dicken Brocklehurst (1861–1905). A valuation at the time described the house at Hare Hill as having a dining room, drawing room, library, billiard room, kitchen, scullery, eleven rooms being used as either bedrooms or dressing rooms, servants’ hall, various servants’ rooms and a cellar, as well as several outbuildings and a garden.

Two visitors are walking through an iron gate in the garden at Hare Hill, Cheshire, on a bright sunny day. They're walking on a path towards a neat lawn surrounded by large mature trees. — Francis Dicken Brocklehurst added the walled kitchen garden at Hare Hill in the early 1900s | © National Trust Images/Paul Harris

The Brocklehurst family

Prominent Macclesfield silk manufacturers, the Brocklehurst family had been involved in the industry since the mid-18th century when they produced silk covered buttons. By the 19th century, they had also established themselves as successful bankers. The Macclesfield Bank was established by William, John & Thomas Brocklehurst & Co. (1816–91), eventually becoming part of what is now NatWest Bank.

The young Francis Dicken Brocklehurst (1837–1905) travelled widely, touring the USA in 1858 and visiting Canada, Cuba, Mexico, Australia, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), China, Japan, India and Tibet before returning home in 1861.

Once living at Hare Hill, he added the walled kitchen garden a short distance from the main house. It supplied produce for the hall, with a glasshouse for more exotic plants where the pergola is now. He also put in a rockery and planted many of what are now the older trees and shrubs in the woodland garden. Francis died unmarried on 4th October 1905, and left Hare Hill to his nephew Robert Walter Douglas Phillips (1861-1948), the son of his sister Martha, on the condition that Robert change his last name to Brocklehurst. Robert and his wife Isabella were already living nearby in Alderley Edge with their twin sons. By 1911, they were living at Hare Hill and the census records that they had a butler, cook, five servants, two chauffeurs, a governess for their sons, an estate foreman, a labourer and three gardeners.

The Brocklehurst twins and the last private owner of Hare Hill

Charles Douglas Fergusson Phillips (1904–77) and his twin Patrick Heron Phillips (1904–30) were born on 17th March 1904. They were close and enjoyed a privileged upbringing. The brothers were schooled together at Eton, where they enjoyed sports, and both had a lifelong passion for horse riding. After graduating from Oxford, Charles headed to London and built a career with Christie’s auction house as a silver expert, later becoming a partner in the business. He was also a Regional Representative for Cheshire for the National Trust and oversaw the acquisition of country houses into National Trust ownership. During the Second World War he re-joined the Cheshire Yeomanry and served in Palestine and Syria.

Patrick, an able horseman, joined the Royal Scot Greys, a mounted division. In his short time with the regiment, he achieved the rank of Lieutenant. On 26 March 1930, just a few weeks after he and Charles celebrated their 26th birthdays, Patrick was killed when he fell from his horse during the Royal Army Service Corps steeplechase. The impact of his death on his family was profound. One of Charles’s final acts at Hare Hill before his death in 1977 was to memorialise his beloved twin in the Walled Garden by installing two wirework sculptures of horses with their riders, created by the artist Christopher Hobbs.

Garden designer, James Russell

Charles engaged the garden designer James Russell (1920–96) to extensively re-design the area around the rockery and Walled Garden, adding plants of interest such as rhododendrons and roses to the original planting of hollies and large conifers. James, or Jim as many of his clients and friends called him, was based at Sunningdale Nurseries, a family-owned business in Surrey, and was an expert plantsman. He worked in over 400 of the UK’s most prestigious gardens from his first design at Seaton Delaval in 1950, through to his last complete design at the Yorkshire Arboretum in the early 1990s. In close collaboration, Charles Brocklehurst and James Russell transformed the area around the Hare Hill ponds, adding more rhododendrons, birch and bamboo among many other plants, turning the woodland area into an ornamental wooded garden. Their final act together before Charles’ death was to plant the Walled Garden with pairings of white plants, thought to represent Charles and his twin, Patrick. While some of James Russell’s planting remains at Hare Hill, much has been lost over the years.

Today, work to interpret Charles Brocklehurst's original vision continues in the walled garden, the wooded garden and the park.

Under the care of the National Trust

Since 1977, the National Trust has continued to care for the walled and woodland garden and the surrounding Hare Hill landscape. Horse drawn dredging has cleared silt from the Hare Hill ponds. James Russell’s garden designs are being recreated in the walled garden, and though climate change means that some plants he chose will no longer thrive at Hare Hill, the Trust respects his planting choices and designs where possible. Meanwhile, the management of water and the creation of habitats for wildlife is at the forefront of our work to preserve the historic parkland of this special place for future generations.

Two women are standing on a wooden bridge surrounded by tall trees in the garden at Hare Hill, Cheshire. One woman is holding a baby, while the other is pushing a pushchair.

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Things to see and do in the garden at Hare Hill

Enjoy a leisurely stroll around the Walled Garden, or take a seat to listen to birdsong in the Wooded Garden. Tucked away from the hustle and bustle, little legs will find Hare Hill an ideal place to let their imaginations go wild and a safe spot to roam. *Hare Hill is now closed and will re-open February 2026.*