Barlaston Hall is an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 Palladian country house in the village of Barlaston

Barlaston

Barlaston is a village and civil parish in the borough of Stafford in the county of Staffordshire, England. It is roughly halfway between the city of Stoke-on-Trent and the small town of Stone. According to the 2001 census the population of the parish was 2,659.-History:The old parish church of...

 in Staffordshire

Staffordshire

Staffordshire is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. Part of the National Forest lies within its borders...

, overlooking the valley of the River Trent

River Trent

The River Trent is one of the major rivers of England. Its source is in Staffordshire on the southern edge of Biddulph Moor. It flows through the Midlands until it joins the River Ouse at Trent Falls to form the Humber Estuary, which empties into the North Sea below Hull and Immingham.The Trent...

 5 miles (8 km) south of Stoke-on-Trent

Stoke-on-Trent

Stoke-on-Trent , also called The Potteries is a city in Staffordshire, England, which forms a linear conurbation almost 12 miles long, with an area of . Together with the Borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme Stoke forms The Potteries Urban Area...

 . It was bought by the Wedgwood

Wedgwood

Wedgwood, strictly speaking Josiah Wedgwood and Sons, is a pottery firm owned by KPS Capital Partners, a private equity company based in New York City, USA. Wedgwood was founded on May 1, 1759 by Josiah Wedgwood and in 1987 merged with Waterford Crystal to create Waterford Wedgwood, an...

 pottery company in 1931, but disrepair and subsidence due to coal mining brought the hall close to demolition in the early 1980s. It was bought for £1 by a trust set up by SAVE Britain's Heritage

SAVE Britain's Heritage

SAVE Britain's Heritage has been described as the most influential conservation group to have been established since William Morris founded the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings in 1877. It was created in 1975 - European Architectural Heritage Year - by a group of journalists,...

 and restored. It has returned to use as a private residence.

History

Barlaston Hall was built by architect Sir Robert Taylor

Robert Taylor (architect)

Sir Robert Taylor was a notable English architect of the mid-late 18th century.Born at Woodford, Essex, Taylor followed in his father's footsteps and started working as a stonemason and sculptor, spending time as a pupil of Sir Henry Cheere...

 for Thomas Mills

Thomas Mills

Thomas Wesley Mills , generally referred to as T. Wesley Mills in the scientific literature, was a Canadian physician and physiologist who worked as a professor at McGill University...

 in 1756-8, to replace the existing manor house

Manor house

A manor house is a country house that historically formed the administrative centre of a manor, the lowest unit of territorial organisation in the feudal system in Europe. The term is applied to country houses that belonged to the gentry and other grand stately homes...

 that he had acquired through marriage. The hall has a red-brick exterior, and is one of a few of Taylor's buildings which retain his trademark octagonal and diamond

Diamond

In mineralogy, diamond is an allotrope of carbon, where the carbon atoms are arranged in a variation of the face-centered cubic crystal structure called a diamond lattice. Diamond is less stable than graphite, but the conversion rate from diamond to graphite is negligible at ambient conditions...

 glazing in the sash window

Sash window

A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels or "sashes" that form a frame to hold panes of glass, which are often separated from other panes by narrow muntins...

s.

The hall came into the Adderley family in 1816 when Rosamund Mills co-heiress of the Barlaston estate, married Ralph Adderley of Coton Hall, Hanbury, Staffordshire. Their son Ralph Thomas Adderley was High Sheriff of Staffordshire

High Sheriff of Staffordshire

This is a list of the High Sheriffs of Staffordshire.The High Sheriff is the oldest secular office under the Crown. Formerly the High Sheriff was the principal law enforcement officer in the county but over the centuries most of the responsibilities associated with the post have been transferred...

 in 1866.

Following his death in 1931 the 380 acres (1.5 km²) estate was put up for sale and was bought by the Wedgwood

Wedgwood

Wedgwood, strictly speaking Josiah Wedgwood and Sons, is a pottery firm owned by KPS Capital Partners, a private equity company based in New York City, USA. Wedgwood was founded on May 1, 1759 by Josiah Wedgwood and in 1987 merged with Waterford Crystal to create Waterford Wedgwood, an...

 pottery company in 1937, as a site to replace its operation in Etruria

Etruria, Staffordshire

Etruria is a suburb of Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England.-Home of Wedgwood:Etruria was the fourth and penultimate site for the Wedgwood pottery business. Josiah Wedgwood, who was previously based in Burslem, opened his new works in 1769. It was named after the Italian district of Etruria,...

 a few miles away in an industrial part of Stoke-on-Trent. A new electric pottery and model village for its employees were built in the grounds. From 1945 the hall housed the Wedgwood Memorial College

Wedgwood Memorial College

Wedgwood Memorial College is a small residential college in Barlaston, near Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, England. The college is owned and operated by Stoke-on-Trent City Council, and is nationally important as a centre of Esperanto education....

, but when the building suffered major subsidence

Subsidence

Subsidence is the motion of a surface as it shifts downward relative to a datum such as sea-level. The opposite of subsidence is uplift, which results in an increase in elevation...

 due to coal mining

Coal mining

The goal of coal mining is to obtain coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content, and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore and for cement production. In the United States,...

 the college moved to accommodation in Barlaston village. The house had been built across a geological fault, and 4 inches (101.6 mm) wide cracks had opened in its walls.

Restoration

By the early 1980s, the hall was in a parlous state of decay, with few repairs for many years, water ingress, and a serious threat of subsidence having been undermined by coal workings. Floorboards had been removed, most of the staircase had collapsed, and ceilings and plasterwork had fallen through to the basement. Wedgwood made two applications to have the Grade 1 listed building demolished, and a public inquiry was convened. SAVE Britain's Heritage

SAVE Britain's Heritage

SAVE Britain's Heritage has been described as the most influential conservation group to have been established since William Morris founded the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings in 1877. It was created in 1975 - European Architectural Heritage Year - by a group of journalists,...

, with Kit Martin

Kit Martin

Kit Martin is an English architect and country house property developer.-Career:Martin is the son of Sir Leslie Martin, Professor of Architecture at the University of Cambridge. Since the 1970s Martin has specialised in the saving and restoration of country houses, by dividing them into smaller...

, architect Bob Weighton and engineering firm Peter Dann & Partners, formulated a plan to restore and protect the house. The National Coal Board

National Coal Board

The National Coal Board was the statutory corporation created to run the nationalised coal mining industry in the United Kingdom. Set up under the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946, it took over the mines on "vesting day", 1 January 1947...

 said that it would pay for the subsidence damage and preventative works to construct a raft under the building, so, early on 29 September 1981, Wedgwood offered to sell Barlaston Hall to SAVE Britain's Heritage

SAVE Britain's Heritage

SAVE Britain's Heritage has been described as the most influential conservation group to have been established since William Morris founded the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings in 1877. It was created in 1975 - European Architectural Heritage Year - by a group of journalists,...

 for £1, on condition that the restoration was completed within five years, in default of which Wedgwood retained an option to repurchase the hall for £1 pound.

An independent trust was established to restore the house, starting with repairs to the roof. However, the NCB reneged on the undertaking it had given at the public inquiry to pay for repairs to past subsidence damage, and for other preventative works, and offered £25,000 compensation under the Coal Act instead. SAVE applied for judicial review

Judicial review

Judicial review is the doctrine under which legislative and executive actions are subject to review by the judiciary. Specific courts with judicial review power must annul the acts of the state when it finds them incompatible with a higher authority...

 against the NCB and the Secretary of State for the Environment

Secretary of State for the Environment

The Secretary of State for the Environment was a UK cabinet position, responsible for the Department of the Environment . This was created by Edward Heath as a combination of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Public Building and Works on 15...

, whose delayed certification was behind the NCB's change of view. The certificates were quickly issued, forcing the hand of the NCB, which eventually agreed to pay £120,000 in compensation, to fund preventative works, and meet the legal costs. Wedgwood also extended the original 5-year restoration period by a further 3 years. Grants from English Heritage

English Heritage

English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...

, the Historic Buildings Council

Historic Buildings Council

Three separate Historic Buildings Councils were created by the Historic Buildings and Ancient Monuments Act 1953, one for each of England, Scotland and Wales...

, the Manifold Trust

Manifold Trust

The Manifold Trust was created by Sir John Smith in 1962 to generate funds for conservation in the UK, particularly of buildings, and to support other culturally important activities, including churches, arts, education, and the environment....

 and a loan from the National Heritage Memorial Fund

National Heritage Memorial Fund

The National Heritage Memorial Fund is a non-departmental public body set up under the National Heritage Act 1980 in memory of people who gave their lives for the United Kingdom....

, allowed the works to be completed in the 1990s.

The restoration of Barlaston Hall is seen as one of the most significant success stories in English heritage. The building was bought by James and Carol Hall, who have restored the interior of the building in Rococo

Rococo

Rococo , also referred to as "Late Baroque", is an 18th-century style which developed as Baroque artists gave up their symmetry and became increasingly ornate, florid, and playful...

style, and it is now a family residence.