page_title: Hugh Grosvenor, 1st Duke of Westminster
section_title: Development of the estates
hierarchical_section_title: Hugh Grosvenor, 1st Duke of Westminster / Development of the estates
caption_attribution_description: English: St Mary's parish church in the village of Eccleston (near Chester) in Cheshire, UK.
context_page_description: Hugh Lupus Grosvenor, 1st Duke of Westminster, KG, PC, JP, styled Viscount Belgrave between 1831 and 1845 and Earl Grosvenor between 1845 and 1869 and known as The Marquess of Westminster between 1869 and 1874, was an English landowner, politician and racehorse owner.
  He inherited the estate of Eaton Hall in Cheshire and land in Mayfair and Belgravia, London, and spent much of his fortune in developing these properties. Although he was a member of parliament from the age of 22, and then a member of the House of Lords, his main interests were not in politics, but rather in his estates, in horse racing, and in country pursuits. He developed the stud at Eaton Hall and achieved success in racing his horses, winning the Derby on four occasions. Grosvenor also took an interest in a range of charities. At his death he was considered to be the richest man in Britain.
context_section_description: The seat of the Grosvenor country estate is at Eaton Hall in Cheshire.  When Grosvenor inherited the estate it was worth at least £152,000 (equivalent to £14,140,000 as of 2019), a year.  After inheriting the estate, one of his first acts was to commission a statue of his namesake, the Norman Hugh Lupus, who had been the 1st Earl of Chester, from G. F. Watts, to stand in the forecourt of the hall. 
  In 1870 Grosvenor commissioned Alfred Waterhouse to design a new house to replace the previous hall designed by William Porden and extended by William Burn.  The core of the previous hall was retained, parts were completely rebuilt and other parts were refaced and remodelled.  A private wing was built as a residence for the family, and this was connected to the main hall by a corridor.  Waterhouse also designed Eaton Chapel and its associated clocktower, and redesigned the stables. It is said that the hall's guests "were not greatly amused" by the carillon of 28 bells that played 28 tunes and sounded every quarter of the hour during the day and the night. The work took 12 years to complete and it cost £803,000 (equivalent to £81,470,000 as of 2019).  The hall has been described as "the most ambitious instance of Gothic Revival domestic architecture anywhere in the country", and as "a vast, cheerless, Gothic structure".
  Grosvenor paid for many buildings on his estates.  He was a patron of the Chester architect John Douglas.  Douglas' biographer, Edward Hubbard, estimated that the duke commissioned four churches and chapels, eight large houses, about 15 schools and institutions, about 50 farms (in whole or part), about 300 cottages, lodges, smithies and the like, two cheese factories, two inns, and about 12 commercial buildings (for most of which Douglas was the architect) – and these were just the buildings in the city of Chester and on the Eaton estate. He commissioned G. F. Bodley to rebuild St Mary's Church in his Cheshire estate village of Eccleston, which was completed in 1899, the year of his death. He also spent money on Grosvenor House in London and Cliveden in Buckinghamshire, which he had inherited on the death of his mother-in-law.  He built shooting lodges on sporting estates in Sutherland, in Scotland, that he rented from his cousin, the Duke of Sutherland.
  The Grosvenor wealth came mainly from the ground rents of Mayfair and Belgravia in London; these grew from about £115,000 (equivalent to £11,080,000 as of 2019) in 1870 to about £250,000 (equivalent to £28,350,000 as of 2019) annually in 1899.  He oversaw much rebuilding in Mayfair and commissioned architects, such as Norman Shaw, Aston Webb and Alfred Waterhouse to design new buildings.  He held his own opinions on architectural styles and decoration, favouring the Queen Anne style rather than the Italianate stucco preferred by his father; for red brick and terracotta; for stucco to be painted bright orange, and railings in chocolate or red; and for Oxford Street to be paved with wooden blocks.  He opposed the use of telegraph poles and wires, and would not allow any building work during the London season.  He encouraged the provision of more urinals, both on his estates and in London generally, and has been described as a "one-man planning and enforcement officer".
caption: St Mary's Church, Eccleston as designed by G. F. Bodley
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