The Grange Book

HAmPsHiRE

LEFT / RIGHT: Robert Adam drawings 1764 for "New Designed Offices" at The Grange Trustees of Sir John Soane Museum, London.

eight-year-old Algerian slave-boy to his niece Margaret Hamilton who, on her deathbed in 1759, had formally released the boy, giving him £800 in bank notes with the instruction ‘Put it in your pocket, tell nobody, and pay the butcher’s bill’. As his niece’s executor, Shanley sued the slave-boy for the return of the money, arguing that both he and the money belonged to the estate. Shanley’s case was backed by the Attorney-General but Henley threw it out, awarding costs to the boy. In his summing up Henley declared: As soon as a man sets foot on English ground he is free: a negro may maintain an action against his master for ill usage, and may have a Habeas Corpus if restrained in his liberty.

It was, sadly, a personal opinion, an obiter dictum that created no precedent in law.

It was around the time of his ennoblement that Henley began a period of renovation of The Grange and its estate. Some suggested that his new-found status was the cue; but a man needs money and leisure

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The GranGe

to effect such changes and Henley, whose workload was diminishing and whose health was already failing, had an abundance of both. His internal changes to the house were not admired. By altering doorways, blocking light-giving oculi, and inserting unwanted panelling, he is said to have darkened the interiors. Outside, he was more successful. He created a lake by damning the River Candover, commissioned a rustic bridge from Robert Adam, and sanctioned a good deal of new planting.

‘The grounds are beautifully laid out and not deficient in wood though it seems principally of modern growth’ noted the Gentleman’s Magazine in 1788.

Henley also extended the house westward. Plans drawn up by Robert Adam in 1764 indicate a service wing leading from the west door into a courtyard with a covered walkway. The extension was designed to house a range of new facilities including a bake house, brewhouse and pump room. All three are listed in the inventory which was drawn up before the house was leased to the Prince of Wales in 1795. But there was more. A kitchen, a pastry room, a scullery, a larder, a dairy and a bottle house were also added. The estate was clearly beginning to take on airs.

Henley died in 1772. As a young man in chambers he had been addicted to port. Whether this was a factor or not, he suffered greatly from gout, a condition that did nothing to soften a difficult temper. (As he once grumpily remarked, ‘If only I had known that these legs were one day to carry a Lord Chancellor, I’d have taken better care of them when I was a lad’).

His son Robert, the second Earl of Northington, shared his father’s gracelessness and also suffered from ill health. An ally of Charles James Fox, he was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1783, three other men, including the Duke of Devonshire, having already refused the position. It was an ill-fated assignment which lasted just eight months. A brief residence in Italy did nothing to improve Northington’s health. He died in Paris in 1788 whilst journeying back to England. There being no male heir, his sisters sold The Grange and what was by now its 3,000-acre estate to the Drummond family, the principal banking dynasty of the age. It would prove to be a fateful sale.

XXX

Mr Henley’s delicate mansion

ParT TWO

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oor, probably a presentation drawing. ornament between architrave and cornice.

ABOVE: XX LEFT: Xxx. BELOW: Xxx. INSET: Half elevation and details of profile of Ionic capital.

Winter 1943, photographs by xxxx (we will need much more detail for many of the captions throughout).