page_title: Wollaton Hall
section_title: Later history
hierarchical_section_title: Wollaton Hall / Later history
caption_attribution_description: English: Back of Wollaton Hall Back of Wollaton Hall with statue in frame.
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: The house was unused for about four decades before 1687, following a fire in 1642, and then re-occupied and given the first of several campaigns of re-modelling of the interiors.  Paintings on the ceilings of the two main staircases and round the walls of one are attributed to Sir James Thornhill and perhaps also Louis Laguerre, carried out around 1700.  Re-modelling was carried out by Wyatville in 1801 and continued intermittently until the 1830s. The hall remains essentially in its original Elizabethan state, with a "fake hammerbeam" wood ceiling, in fact supported by horizontal beams above, but given large and un-needed hammerbeams for decoration.
  The gallery of the main hall contains Nottinghamshire's oldest pipe organ, thought to date from the end of the 17th century, possibly by the builder Gerard Smith. It is still blown by hand. Beneath the hall are many cellars and passages, and a well and associated reservoir tank, in which some accounts report that an admiral of the Willoughby family took a daily bath.
  The Willoughbys were noted for the number of explorers they produced, most famously Sir Hugh Willoughby who died in the Arctic in 1554 attempting a North East passage to Cathay. Willoughby's Land is named after him.
  In 1881, the house was still owned by the head of the Willoughby family, Digby Willoughby, 9th Baron Middleton, but by then it was "too near the smoke and busy activity of a large manufacturing town... now only removed from the borough by a narrow slip of country", so that the previous head of the family, Henry Willoughby, 8th Baron Middleton, had begun to let the house to tenants and in 1881 it was vacant.
  The hall was bought by Nottingham Council in 1925, and opened as a museum in 1926. In 2005 it was closed for a two-year refurbishment and re-opened in April 2007. The prospect room at the top of the house, and the kitchens in the basement, were opened up for the public to visit, though this must be done on one of the escorted tours. The latter can be booked on the day, lasts about an hour, and a small charge is made.
  In 2011, key scenes from the Batman movie The Dark Knight Rises were filmed outside Wollaton Hall. The Hall was featured as the latest Wayne Manor. The Hall is five miles north of Gotham, Nottinghamshire, through which Gotham City indirectly got its name.
  Wollaton Hall Park is Grade II* listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.
caption: Oblique view from the rear
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