page_title: Barlow Woodseats Hall
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Barlow Woodseats Hall / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Barlow Woodseats Hall, a manor house in Barlow, Derbyshire, England
context_page_description: Barlow Woodseats Hall is a Grade II* listed manor house situated at Barlow Woodseats, on the edge of the village of Barlow, in Derbyshire. It remains the only manor house in the Parish of Barlow, and the current house dates from the early 17th century, although there are much earlier origins to before 1269.
context_section_description: Manorial tenure began with Ascoit Musard in 1086 and ownership passed through members of several families including the Earl of Shrewsbury from 1593. The present hall dates from the 17th century but there has been a house here from at least 1269 when it was called Barlew Woodsets meaning ‘a house in the wood belonging to Barley’. The deeds dated June 1368 and later dates refer to Barley Wodesetes.
  It is also believed to be once occupied by one of Derbyshire’s best-known daughters Bess of Hardwick who married the owner of the Hall; he subsequently died in 1544. This was the first of her four husbands even though she was only 14.
  The main house was built by local yeoman Arthur Mower, and it is believed this was around the time he married in 1620. Arthur Mower was appointed Agent to George Barley, Lord of the Manor in Barlow in 1563, then on George's death in 1568 to his son Peter Barley. Mower died in 1652 but several generations of his family occupied the house in subsequent years.
  The manor of Barlow was held, with Staveley, by the Musards; it was afterwards in the ancient family of Abitot, a branch of which, on settling here, is supposed to have taken their name from the place. The family of Barlow, or Barley, possessed it for several generations.
  James Barley, Esq., sold it in 1593, to George Earl of Shrewsbury; the Earl of Newcastle purchased it from the Shrewsbury family in the reign of James I or Charles I. Having passed by descent to the Duke of Portland, it was in 1813 exchanged with the Duke of Rutland for the manor of Whitwell.
  In 1843 the house passed to the Thorold family by the marriage of Charlotte Mower. This family can be traced back 900 years to the Sheriff of Lincoln who lived during the reign of Edward the Confessor.
  Until 2006 the house had been owned for many years by the Milward family, owners of Milward's Needles. With the death of Rosemary Milward (née Smedley-Aston), a well-respected local medieval historian and wife of Chesterfield surgeon F. John Milward, the house was put on the open market and sold in 2006.
caption: Barlow Woodseats Hall
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