Down Hall is a beautiful house with a long and interesting history.  We hope you find these notes add to the enjoyment of your visit.

1322 to present day

1322: Definitely a house on the site but its form is unknown; however this was the first secure reference to Down Hall when Robert Taper gave it to Hatfield Broad Oak Priory. From then on it was a monastic possession farmed by lay tenants on behalf of the Priory.

With the dissolution of the Monasteries in 1537 it passed briefly to Barking Abbey; reverting to the crown in 1539 for whom monastic lands were to become a source of revenue.

1540: Down Hall was sold by Henry VIII to William Glascock, who was probably responsible for giving the house its Tudor appearance. Its mill, situated across the road, rebuilt several times, survived until the mid nineteenth century.

1624: The house and mill remained in the same family until in default of a male heir, they passed to a daughter Elizabeth, who married a Ballet; and with the change of surname the line continued until the sale in 1720 to Mathew Prior. However the surname Glascock is to this day quite common in the area. 

June 1720: Prior bought Down Hall from John Ballet for £2,800 with money given to him generously by his friend Edward Harley. Prior’s friends also included a brilliant circle of writers, scholars, and artists including the architect James Gibbs, the landscape gardener Charles Bridgeman and the painter Sir James Thornhill. Charles Bridgeman began landscaping the grounds, while James Gibbs created designs for a complete remodelling of the existing house and also for a new house with a villa type design however only some remodelling of the Tudor house was undertaken.

Prior’s achievements were limited by ill health and aged only 57 years he died on September 18, 1721. His body was brought to London for burial in Poets’ Corner at Westminster Abbey.

1721: According to agreements made before Prior’s purchase, the house passed to Edward Harley (2nd Earl of Oxford from 1724), during which time remodelling of the old house continued and landscape designs amended to include the Bowling Green.

Harley also owned nearby Wimpole Hall, which through his indulgence for paintings, books and curiosities, he had to sell in 1740. A year later he died aged only 52 years.

March 1742: Heavily mortgaged, Down Hall was sold by Harley’s widow to a wealthy silk merchant, William Selwin for £4,500. Here he established himself as a country landowner, enlarging the estate by acquiring farms and other estates in the neighbourhood, which was continued by his successors for 150 years.

1768: On William Selwin’s death, predeceased by his wife and eldest son, Down Hall and it’s neighbouring properties were left to his eldest surviving son Charles, a banker by profession. It is to Charles Selwin that we can attribute the major building works, which at last brought about the total transformation of Down Hall, by the addition of a large new house to the existing house, nearing completion in 1777.

 

1794: Death of Charles Selwin - buried in the family vault at Hatfield Broad Oak as his father had been. Lacking in descendants, the will made elaborate provision for the inheritance of Down Hall. It was left in turn to his younger brother, Thomas, his younger sister, Jane, thence to her daughter, Lady Jane Ibbeston and to Lady Jane’s 2nd son Charles and in default of him to 3rd son James and in default of him to 4th son John Thomas, with requirement for these sons to change surname to Selwin if they inherited. All this took place, apart from the third son who died young.

1794: Thomas Selwin inherited Down Hall at the age of 70 years on the death of his brother Charles, though it is unlikely he ever lived there. Showing signs of senility and unable to look after his affairs, these were put into the hands of his sister Jane Caygill and her daughter Lady Jane Ibbetson.

1798: On Thomas Selwin’s death, Jane Caygill inherited Down Hall as a 76 year old widow. Married in 1744 to John Caygill, a wealthy merchant in Halifax, it was through her that the family link was established with Yorkshire; a link, which would remain until Down Hall, was sold in the early 1930s. She alone of William Selwin’s children produced a child, Lady Jane Ibbetson, herself already widowed in 1795. In the latter nineteenth century her great grandson, the future Lord Rookwood, mentioned her portrait, which hung at Down Hall ‘painted when she was an old lady blind living at Down Hall with her daughter Lady Ibbetson’.

1806: Lady Jane Ibbetson, or Dame Jenny as she was known and her mother had been given the responsibility of her Uncle Thomas’s affairs including Down Hall when he had been pronounced a lunatic. She joined her elderly and blind mother, living at Down Hall for the rest of her life, inheriting the estate on her mother’s death. Her main interests were the furnishings and gardens, carrying out major landscaping works.

1816: Lady Jane’s second son Charles inherited Down Hall on her death and was required to change his name to Selwin. His period of ownership was brief as his elder brother died in 1825 and he inherited the title, returning to the Ibbetson family seat, Denton Park in Yorkshire and resumed the name of Ibbetson.

1825: The last of Dame Jenny’s sons, John Thomas, inherited Down Hall, when his elder brother Charles became the 4th baronet.  John had now to become a Selwin.  He married and led the life of a country gentleman, travelling throughout Great Britain and abroad. While on the Continent he purchased works of art and furnishings. As an accomplished painter in watercolours and oils, many of which were landscapes and views of Down Hall - sadly, many perished in a fire in the later twentieth century.

1861:  John’s nephew the 5th baronet, another Charles, died childless and John Thomas Selwin, now aged 76 years and widowed for three years, succeeded him as the 6th baronet. He would from this point onwards sometimes link the Ibbetson and Selwin names by styling himself as Sir John Ibbetson-Selwin. He remained at Down Hall with his son and heir, Henry, until his death aged 84 years in 1869.

1869: Down Hall’s new owner, Sir Henry John Selwin, the first of three children and the only son was born in 1826 after his father had inherited Down Hall. He embarked on a career in politics, entering parliament in 1865 and sat as a Conservative representing the area of South West Essex, which included Epping and Down Hall.  At the age of 40 years he married for the second time - his cousin by marriage the 49 year old Eden Ibbetson, adding the name of Ibbetson to Selwin, inheriting the Ibbetson title as the 7th baronet when his father died.

 

1869: continued/ Recent remarriage to a widow who was wealthy in her own right, his inheritance of the Ibbetsons title in 1869 and the Conservative party being out of office may all have led to the opportunity for the rebuilding of Down Hall, which was completed in 1873. Newly rebuilt it became the setting for balls, musical soirees, grand receptions and of course, political entertaining.

1892: Sir Henry Selwin Ibbetson was raised to the peerage by Lord Salisbury and took the title Rookwood from the local Rookwood Hall.  No longer in the House of Commons he devoted himself to work in his own county; a keen sportsman he was Master of the Essex hunt for years and the hunt balls at Down Hall were regarded as one of the social events of the year. In 1899 after 32 years of marriage, Lady Rookwood died at their London home - her ashes were brought to Down Hall and buried in the family vault at Hatfield Broad Oak. After Eden’s death Lord Rookwood’s own health declined, marrying though for the third time in September 1900 to Sophia Harriet Lawrell, dying two years later in London from where he was brought to Down Hall and buried at Hatfield Broad Oak.

1902: On the death of Lord Rookwood, childless, the Ibbetson title and his own peerage became extinct. He left Down Hall to his nephews John and Horace Calverley, the sons of his sister Isabella Calverley. John, however, predeceased him leaving Horace as the sole inheritor.  In 1891 Horace had married Louisa Mary Henniker and they had a daughter, Joyce Eden, however by 1902 he and his wife were leading separate lives - Horace lived in London and his wife and daughter lived at Down Hall.

1914-1918: Down Hall became a convalescent home for wounded soldiers. After the war, the house returned to family use; the effects of recession in farming were evident and in 1920 the estate was broken up with all but the immediate land sold at auction. The Down Hall estate, which the Selwins and their descendants had spent over 150 years enlarging, reaching 3000 acres in six parishes in Lord Rookwood’s time, reverted roughly to the 100 acres it had been when Matthew Prior had bought it in 1720.

1929: Horace Calverley died and it was inevitable that Down Hall would be sold - the heyday of the country house was over, the majority would become institutions, not family residences.

1932: Down Hall began a new life as Downham School, although the link with the Calverley family was not lost as two or three descendants were pupils. The school continued into the 1960s, though it lacked the high academic standards now required for girls’ education. When it was sold the estate was further reduced in size by the sale of the neighbouring buildings and portions of land.

1967: A new type of modern institution took over - Down Hall became an Antiques Business and Conference Centre.

1986: Sold again and purchased by the Veladail Group, who continue to operate Down Hall as a country house hotel, combining business with pleasure.