Honington Hall is a privately owned 17th century country house at Honington

Honington, Warwickshire

Honington, Warwickshire is an English hamlet and parish in the Brailes division of the hundred of Kington, roughly two miles north of Shipston-on-Stour.The Village consists of approximately 60 houses that are contained within the Parish boundary....

, near Stratford on Avon, Warwickshire

Warwickshire

Warwickshire is a landlocked non-metropolitan county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, although the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare...

. It has Grade I listed building status.

The Manor of Honington was in the ownership of the Priory of Coventry until the Dissolution of the Monasteries

Dissolution of the Monasteries

The Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their...

 in the 16th century. In 1540 it was granted by the Crown to Robert Gibbes. The estate was sold by the Gibbes family in about 1670 to Henry Parker who in 1696 succeeded to the Parker Baronetcy

Parker Baronets

There have been seven Baronetcies created for persons with the surname Parker, three in the Baronetage of England, two in the Baronetage of Great Britain and two in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom. Two of the creations are extant as of 2008...

 and an estate at Melford Hall

Melford Hall

Melford Hall is a stately home in the village of Long Melford, Suffolk, England. It is the ancestral seat of the Parker Baronets.The hall was mostly constructed in the 16th century, incorporating parts of a medieval building held by the abbots of Bury St Edmunds which had been in use since before...

, Suffolk

Suffolk

Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...

.

The present house was built by Parker in 1682 but was sold by Parker's grandson in 1737 to Joseph Townsend who carried out considerable alterations and extensions in the mid 18th century. The Georgian style house has a number of fine features including round headed niches over the ground floor windows of the east front which contain busts

Bust (sculpture)

A bust is a sculpted or cast representation of the upper part of the human figure, depicting a person's head and neck, as well as a variable portion of the chest and shoulders. The piece is normally supported by a plinth. These forms recreate the likeness of an individual...

 of Roman Emperor

Roman Emperor

The Roman emperor was the ruler of the Roman State during the imperial period . The Romans had no single term for the office although at any given time, a given title was associated with the emperor...

s.

The Townsends held the estate until 1905 when it passed by marriage to Sir Grey Skipwith Bt ( see Skipwith Baronets

Skipwith Baronets

There have been three Baronetcies created in the Baronetage of England for members of the ancient Skipwith family of Skipwith, Yorkshire, which relocated to Lincolnshire in the 14th century. They were a successful court family, with one member, Margaret Skipwith, seen as a possible queen of England...

). Later the estate became the seat of the Wiggin family

Wiggin Baronets

The Wiggin Baronetcy, of Metchley Grange in Harborne in the County of Stafford, is a title in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 17 June 1892 for Henry Wiggin. He was the founder of Henry Wiggin and Co Ltd, manufacturers of specialty metal products, and also represented...

.

The house is not generally open to the public but may be visited by prior group arrangement