page_title: Braunstone Town
section_title: Braunstone Hall
hierarchical_section_title: Braunstone Town / Braunstone Hall
caption_attribution_description: English: BRAUNSTONE HALL, c. 1994
context_page_description: Braunstone is a civil parish and is the largest parish within the district of Blaby in Leicestershire, England, now known as the Town of Braunstone or more commonly, Braunstone Town. In 2007 the population was around 15,000. There are around 7,500 households including Thorpe Astley. At the 2011 census the population of the civil parish had increased to 16,850.
  Braunstone is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086, giving a population of "two sokemen and four villeins". The village remained a small settlement until 1925 when the Leicester Corporation compulsorily purchased the bulk of the Winstanley Braunstone Hall estate.
  It is just outside the city boundary of Leicester, and the part of the old civil parish now inside the city boundary is also called Braunstone. This part of the parish, which contains a large council estate was detached in 1935 from the Blaby district and Braunstone Parish to become part of the county borough of Leicester, hence the present split. The use of the name Braunstone Town is more recent, and is an attempt by Braunstone Town Council to distinguish their village from the council estate of the same name.
context_section_description: Braunstone Hall is a Grade II listed building in the centre of Braunstone Park. It was built in 1776 for the Winstanley family, lords of the manor and the main land owners in the village of Braunstone. In many ways the Hall resembles town houses like 17 Friar Lane. It is built in similar materials and has similar Classical proportions and decoration. But, while the Friar Lane houses were lived in by wealthy merchants and professional people or were used as town houses by landed families, Braunstone Hall was the centre of a country estate passed on through the Winstanley family from generation to generation. As country houses go, Braunstone Hall is fairly unassuming. It was not designed by one of the many fashionable country house architects of the day but by local builder and Leicester politician, William Oldham. He used red brick and Swithland slate, common local materials. The central doorway and windows are emphasised just as they are at 17 Friar Lane. Here they are set in an arched recess reaching up to the top of the facade. The Hall has a slightly less elaborate frontage to the Park at the back and, inside, Classical columns in the entrance hall and an elegant staircase. Building has always been a dangerous occupation and the building records show that a stonemason and a labourer were killed in the construction of Braunstone Hall. Around the Hall, the Winstanleys had a Park laid out with a lake and gardens. As a wealthy family they had horses and carriages which were kept in the stable block next to the house. These buildings did not share the refinement of the house and were more like farm buildings, but they were still carefully designed, with fine brickwork arches and decoration at the eaves. The walled garden, restored and beautifully planted by the city council, once contained fruit trees, serving the household both as a source of food and as a place to stroll. There are also reminders of the Winstanleys in the village. They commissioned one of the most famous of Victorian Architects, William Butterfield, to design cottages for estate workers at Cressida Place and in Main Street. Both groups of cottages were built in 1859. Butterfield modelled the houses on traditional buildings and used local materials but their design has a deliberate, thought-out quality which suggests that it was the work of an architect. The parsonage, built in 1864, and the village school of 1867, were paid for by the Winstanleys. In 1902 parts of the estate adjacent to Narborough Road were offered for sale as building plots. Braunstone was greatly changed in the 1930s when the Winstanleys estate was bought by the Leicester Corporation, partly as land for new housing. Initially held by the Parks Department with the Hall being used as a junior school with over 600 places from 1932, the Hall and two acres of surrounding land were purchased by the Leicester Education Committee in 1939 for £3,500, allowing the construction of an assembly hall and further alterations to the building. The Hall was used as a school until 1996, after which it fell into disrepair. In 2013 plans were unveiled for the restoration of the building and its conversion into a hotel, restaurant, wedding venue and conference centre. Now renamed Winstanley House, the hall operates as a hotel and wedding venue.
caption: Braunstone Hall, c.1994
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