Ayscoughfee Hall
Encyclopedia
Spalding, Lincolnshire
Spalding is a market town with a population of 30,000 on the River Welland in the South Holland district of Lincolnshire, England. Little London is a hamlet directly south of Spalding on the B1172 road....
, Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire is a county in the east of England. It borders Norfolk to the south east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south west, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire to the west, South Yorkshire to the north west, and the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north. It also borders...
, England, and is a landmark
Landmark
This is a list of landmarks around the world.Landmarks may be split into two categories - natural phenomena and man-made features, like buildings, bridges, statues, public squares and so forth...
on the fen tour.
History
The houseHouse
A house is a building or structure that has the ability to be occupied for dwelling by human beings or other creatures. The term house includes many kinds of different dwellings ranging from rudimentary huts of nomadic tribes to free standing individual structures...
, currently a museum
Museum
A museum is an institution that cares for a collection of artifacts and other objects of scientific, artistic, cultural, or historical importance and makes them available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary. Most large museums are located in major cities...
, was built for Richard Ailwyn (or Aldwyn) in the fifteenth century. A dendrological study of the roof timbers reveal that the house was built in one phase, with a completion date of the majority of the present building in 1451.
Richard Ailwyn's son, Sir Nicholas Ailwyn, a member of the Mercer's Company, became Lord Mayor of London
Lord Mayor of London
The Right Honourable Lord Mayor of London is the legal title for the Mayor of the City of London Corporation. The Lord Mayor of London is to be distinguished from the Mayor of London; the former is an officer only of the City of London, while the Mayor of London is the Mayor of Greater London and...
in 1499.
The house is substantially unchanged from that period, and would be recognisable to a visitor from the fifteenth century.
The Hall was reputed to have belonged to the Ayscough (Askew
Askew
Askew may refer to:*Anne Askew - English Protestant persecuted as a heretic*Desmond Askew - British actor*Egeon Askew- English divine*Luke Askew - American actor*Reubin O'Donovan Askew - American politician, former governor of Florida...
, Ainscough
Ainscough
Ainscough is an old Lancashire family name, also spelled Ayscough, Aiskew, Askew, and Ascough.-Origins:It is thought that the name is derived from the Norse words "ask skog". Although other sources suggest that Aiskew is a corruption of the words "Eiki Skogr" translating to Oak Wood...
) family in the early part of the 16th century - Fee referring to the Knight's Fee or living from the property. Early records name the house as Ayscough Fee Hall. A grant of land at Spalding was made to Sir William Ayscough (b.1490–d.1541) by Henry VIII
Henry VIII of England
Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...
. E. H. Gooch writes about "Ayscoughfee Hall" in his book "The History of Spalding", 1940.
In the seventeenth century, the Hall passed into the Johnson family. The most notable Johnson was the second Maurice Johnson, known as "the Antiquary" (1688–1755), who founded the Spalding Gentlemen's Society (the second oldest antiquarian society still in existence) in 1710.
Maurice Johnson was a good friend of the more famous local antiquarian William Stukeley
William Stukeley
William Stukeley FRS, FRCP, FSA was an English antiquarian who pioneered the archaeological investigation of the prehistoric monuments of Stonehenge and Avebury, work for which he has been remembered as "probably... the most important of the early forerunners of the discipline of archaeology"...
.
Museum and civic amenity
When the last occupant left in 1896, the Hall & Gardens were bought on behalf of the people of Spalding as a memorial of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, and was handed over to the town "free of debt" on 9 August 1902 in celebration of the Coronation of King Edward VII.Now a museum and civic amenity, the house was also used as a primary school for a number of years during the 20th century.
Some of the features of the 5 acres (20,234.3 m²) gardens were reputedly laid out by William Sands in the early eighteenth century, and are still visible. The gardens include many fine features, including tall yew hedges, an early ice-house, and a fine ornamental lake. At the end of which sits a War Memorial (opened in 1922) which was designed by Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens.
Other features include a bowling green, tennis courts, aviary and a café
Café
A café , also spelled cafe, in most countries refers to an establishment which focuses on serving coffee, like an American coffeehouse. In the United States, it may refer to an informal restaurant, offering a range of hot meals and made-to-order sandwiches...
. A rustic bandstand, built to commemorate the Coronation of George VI, was built in 1937 but was destroyed by arsonists in the early 1970s. The Friends of Ayscoughfee still arrange summer concerts on the south lawn during the summer months.
With Heritage Lottery Fund
Heritage Lottery Fund
The Heritage Lottery Fund is a fund established in the United Kingdom under the National Lottery etc. Act 1993. The Fund opened for applications in 1994. It uses money raised through the National Lottery to transform and sustain the UK’s heritage...
backing, and commitment from South Holland District Council
South Holland, Lincolnshire
South Holland is a local government district of Lincolnshire. The district council is based in Spalding.It was formed on 1 April 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, as a merger of the Spalding urban district with East Elloe Rural District and Spalding Rural District...
, the Hall was closed in 2003 for a complete sympathetic restoration. The Hall was officially re-opened to the public as a museum and community facility on Friday 30 June 2006, by Dr Jonathan Clark, of the University of York
University of York
The University of York , is an academic institution located in the city of York, England. Established in 1963, the campus university has expanded to more than thirty departments and centres, covering a wide range of subjects...
.
