page_title: Wollaton Hall
section_title: Owners of Wollaton Hall
hierarchical_section_title: Wollaton Hall / Owners of Wollaton Hall
context_page_description: Wollaton Hall is an Elizabethan country house of the 1580s standing on a small but prominent hill in Wollaton Park, Nottingham, England. The house is now Nottingham Natural History Museum, with Nottingham Industrial Museum in the outbuildings. The surrounding parkland has a herd of deer, and is regularly used for large-scale outdoor events such as rock concerts, sporting events and festivals.
  Wollaton is a classic prodigy house, "the architectural sensation of its age", though its builder was not a leading courtier and its construction stretched the resources he mainly obtained from coalmining; the original family home was at the bottom of the hill. Though much re-modelled inside, the "startlingly bold" exterior remains largely intact.
  Wollaton Hall was built between 1580 and 1588 for Sir Francis Willoughby and is believed to be designed by the Elizabethan architect, Robert Smythson, who had by then completed Longleat, and was to go on to design Hardwick Hall. The general plan of Wollaton is comparable to these, and was widely adopted for other houses, but the exuberant decoration of Wollaton is distinctive, and it is possible that Willoughby played some part in creating it.
context_section_description: 1580 – 1596: Sir Francis Willoughby (1547-1596)
  1596 – 1643: Sir Percival Willoughby
  1643 – 1672: Francis Willoughby
  1672 – 1729: Thomas Willoughby, 1st Baron Middleton
  1729 – 1758: Francis Willoughby, 2nd Baron Middleton
  1758 – 1774: Francis Willoughby, 3rd Baron Middleton
  1774 – 1781: Thomas Willoughby, 4th Baron Middleton
  1781 – 1800: Henry Willoughby, 5th Baron Middleton
  1800 – 1835: Henry Willoughby, 6th Baron Middleton
  1835 – 1856: Digby Willoughby, 7th Baron Middleton
  1856 – 1877: Henry Willoughby, 8th Baron Middleton
  1877 – 1922: Digby Wentworth Bayard Willoughby, 9th Baron Middleton
  1922 – 1924: Godfrey Ernest Percival Willoughby, 10th Baron Middleton
  1924 – 1925: Michael Guy Percival Willoughby, 11th Baron Middleton
  1925 – Present: Nottingham Corporation now Nottingham City Council
caption: Wollaton Hall Park, by Hendrik Frans de Cort c. 1795
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