History of Hanbury Hall

Expert curated

A view of the house and parterre garden at Hanbury Hall, Worcestershire | © National Trust/Annapurna Mellor

Hanbury Hall, Worcestershire, is a summer retreat built in the baroque style for lawyer Thomas Vernon (1654–1721) in the early 18th century. It is celebrated for its wall and ceiling paintings by James Thornhill and for the recreated formal gardens originally laid out by George London. The story of the house and the Vernon family tells of the vicissitudes of fortune over three centuries – sometimes, but not always, reflecting the family’s motto Vernon Semper Viret, or ‘Vernon always flourishes.’

A stage set for summer

Thomas Vernon was a wealthy lawyer practising in the Court of Chancery in London, whose family hailed from Worcestershire. He commissioned Hanbury Hall as a summer residence away from the city and as a setting for both his social and political ambitions. It was built at the very beginning of the 18th century, probably by the master mason William Rudhall, on the site of the earlier Spernall Hall. The house displays the restrained classicism of the Dutch baroque style, which was then also fashionable in England.

Inside, Hanbury’s walls appear solid, but many are of stiffened canvas, airy in summer but drafty in winter. The tension between style and substance is apparent in the serious baroque framing of the hall, anchoring the whimsical flair within. In Thornhill’s exuberant mural paintings, classical pillars flank the mythical action but fail to contain it, as gods and cherubs escape their scenes.

George London’s design for the garden also reflected the baroque taste of the period, as seen in the parterre (or ‘on the ground’), a geometrical arrangement of plants separated by clipped hedges. Such garden features were meant to be admired from above, emphasised at Hanbury by the fact that the parterre is sunken, at a lower level than the rest of the garden. London also created a slightly less formal but still geometrical ‘wilderness’, with diagonal paths converging on the main walk. Thornhill made a drawing of Hanbury in about 1710 showing people playing bowls in front of the still young hedges.

Oil painting on plaster and wooden laths, The Life of Achilles by Sir James Thornhill (Melcombe Regis 1675 - Stalbridge 1734), signed, 1710. Great Staircase wall painting by Sir James Thornhill. The ceiling depicts an Assembly of the Gods including Zeus (Jupiter), Aphrodite (Venus), Dionysus (Bacchus), Athene (Minerva), Cronus, the Furies, and Hermes (Mercury) descending to the human world below the cornice — The Life of Achilles by possibly Sir James Thornhill (Woolland 1675 - Stalbridge 1734), Hanbury Hall, Worcestershire | © National Trust Images/Dennis Gilbert

Naval connections

Thomas Vernon and his cousin and heir Bowater Vernon (1683–1735) were both investors in the South Sea Company, set up to ship enslaved people to Spanish America. Many were ruined by the crash in the value of the Company’s shares in 1720, but Bowater does not seem to have been among them, as he continued his spending on the Hanbury estate. In later years, the Vernons’ fortunes were shored up by marriages to women from wealthy naval families. The Royal Navy protected trade to and from the new colonies, including that in enslaved people, and fought for control over colonial possessions with other European powers.

Bowater’s son Thomas (1724–71) married Emma Cornewall (1711–77) of Berrington, Herefordshire, whose wealth came from her father’s successful naval career. Jessie Anne Letitia Foley (1805–40) who married Thomas Tayler Vernon (1792–1835) had an uncle, Admiral Sir Thomas Foley, who made a fortune from taking part in capturing the treasure from the Spanish ship St Jago in 1793. Finally, Sir George Vernon (1865–1940) married Doris Allan (1883–1962), the heiress to the Allan shipping line, which had supported the British Army in the Crimean War (1853–56) and later shipped cargo and British settlers to and from Canada.

A painting by John Wootton from 1734 showing Bowater Vernon (1683-1735) in the foreground with a gun and his dogs, in the background is Hanbury Hall surrounded by formal gardens and avenues of trees. — Bowater Vernon (1683-1735) with Hanbury Hall and its formal garden, by John Wootton, 1734 | © National Trust Images/John Hammond

Marriages gone awry

In two cases, marital problems had a big impact on Hanbury. The daughter of Emma and Thomas Vernon, also called Emma (1755–1818), made a seemingly excellent match when she married Henry Cecil (1754–1804), later to become the 1st Marquess of Exeter, of Burghley House, Lincolnshire. Henry and Emma took Hanbury as their primary residence until he inherited Burghley. They considered the silverware and other Vernon possessions old-fashioned and replaced them with new up-to-date furnishings. Henry and Emma also made the grounds at Hanbury more informal, in the style of the fashionable landscape designer Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown.

But Henry quickly ran into debt and the marriage was an unhappy one. Emma took ‘Norris’s drops and Madeira’ – opiates and alcohol – and then fell in love and eloped with the local curate, the Rev. William Sneyd (1754–93). Henry had an affair with Sarah Hoggins (1773–97), the 16-year-old daughter of a farmer in whose house he was lodging, and married her bigamously (while still married to Emma). When Henry and Emma divorced in 1791, the contents of Hanbury were sold and the house was let. Emma married William Sneyd and took him to Portugal, to try to cure the tuberculosis he was suffering from, but he died a few years later. Emma returned to Hanbury in 1804 after Henry’s death.

After Emma’s death in 1818, Hanbury went to another branch of the Vernon family, descended from a younger brother of Bowater Vernon. Harry Foley Vernon (1834–1920, later 1st Baronet) inherited Hanbury in 1859 and married Lady Georgina Baillie-Hamilton (1839–1928) shortly afterwards. Having been a Liberal Member of Parliament for some time, he left politics in 1868 to concentrate on managing the Hanbury estate. Harry employed the architect R.W. Billings to add Gothic and Moorish touches to the house, as can still be seen in the gate piers and gazebos in the courtyard.

Sir George Vernon, who inherited in 1920, seems to have had a contrarian character. He disliked the Church of England, and his refusal to pay tithes (or church taxes) resulted in a forced sale of his goods in 1935. After his marriage to Doris, Lady Vernon (née Allan, 1883–1962), broke down, Ruth Powick (1910–80) became his companion and unofficial adopted daughter (she changed her surname to Vernon). Sir George had extreme right-wing political views and sympathised with the British Union of Fascists in the late 1930s. By this time he was in poor health, with no medical treatment available to ease his pain. Soon after the outbreak of the Second World War, knowing that he was dying, Sir George took his own life.

Portrait of Emma Vernon, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, post-conservation at Hanbury Hall, Worcestershire | © National Trust Images/J.M.Dudley

A stage set once more

The National Trust acquired Hanbury in 1953 under the terms of Sir George’s will, with an endowment provided by an anonymous donor. The Thornhill murals were an important factor in the Trust’s decision to acquire the house. Basic repairs were carried out to the main structure of the building, but the servants’ wing was demolished, reflecting the generally low opinion of Victorian architecture at the time. Initially only the spaces containing the Thornhill murals were shown to the public, and the house was regularly rented out for weddings and other social functions.

In the early 1990s, after considerable architectural conservation, Hanbury was opened more fully to the public, furnished with objects received as gifts and bequests. Ruth Vernon had married Frederick Horton (1905–90) in 1946, and through their wills they made sure that portraits, silver, Chinese export porcelain and furniture that Ruth had inherited from Sir George were given to the National Trust for display at Hanbury.

It was also in the 1990s that London’s baroque garden at Hanbury was meticulously recreated. The restoration was based on the 1732 Hanbury estate survey as well as on archaeological evidence and was funded by a bequest from Dinah Albright and a grant from the European Union.