Tolethope Hall in the parish of Little Casterton

Little Casterton

Little Casterton is a small village and civil parish in Rutland. It is about two miles north of Stamford on a minor road that runs to the south of the River Gwash between Great Casterton and Ryhall.The village has a church ....

, Rutland

Rutland

Rutland is a landlocked county in central England, bounded on the west and north by Leicestershire, northeast by Lincolnshire and southeast by Peterborough and Northamptonshire....

, England, PE9 4BH is a country house near Stamford, Lincolnshire

Stamford, Lincolnshire

Stamford is a town and civil parish within the South Kesteven district of the county of Lincolnshire, England. It is approximately to the north of London, on the east side of the A1 road to York and Edinburgh and on the River Welland...

 at . It is now the location of the Rutland Theatre of the Stamford Shakespeare Company.

The hall was the home of the Browne family, a notable member of which Robert (c. 1550-c. 1633), was born there. He was the leader of the Brownists, early advocates of a congregational form of organization for the Church of England

Church of England

The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...

. Having in 1580, attempted to set up a separate Church in Norwich

Norwich

Norwich is a city in England. It is the regional administrative centre and county town of Norfolk. During the 11th century, Norwich was the largest city in England after London, and one of the most important places in the kingdom...

, Norfolk

Norfolk

Norfolk is a low-lying county in the East of England. It has borders with Lincolnshire to the west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea coast and to the north-west the county is bordered by The Wash. The county...

, England

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...

, he was obliged to move to Middelburg

Middelburg

Middelburg is a municipality and a city in the south-western Netherlands and the capital of the province of Zeeland. It is situated in the Midden-Zeeland region. It has a population of about 48,000.- History of Middelburg :...

 in the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 in 1581. See Congregational church

Congregational church

Congregational churches are Protestant Christian churches practicing Congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its own affairs....

. or, for more history with pictures, the Stamford Shakespeare site.

The hall and its gardens are now noted as an outdoor Shakespearian theatre. The hall itself stands on the middle of three terraces cut in sloping ground. Its raked auditorium is arranged on the lower one, looking outward across the lower terrace which forms the open air stage behind which, is the open country of the Gwash Valley

River Gwash

The River Gwash, a tributary of the River Welland, flows through the English counties of Leicestershire, Rutland and Lincolnshire. It rises just outside the village of Knossington in Leicestershire, near the western edge of Rutland...

. The auditorium is permanently covered. The Stamford Shakespeare Company presents a three-month season each summer. Normally there are two Shakespeare plays and one by another playwright.

From the A1 Great North Road, southbound, Tolethorpe Hall may be approached from the Old Great North Road (B1081) through the village of Little Casterton. It is about two miles (3 km) from the A1. The grounds of Tolethorpe occupy about seven acre

Acre

The acre is a unit of area in a number of different systems, including the imperial and U.S. customary systems. The most commonly used acres today are the international acre and, in the United States, the survey acre. The most common use of the acre is to measure tracts of land.The acre is related...

s.

See also

• Wilson v Racher
  Wilson v Racher
  Wilson v Racher [1974] ICR 428 is a UK labour law case concerning constructive dismissal. It serves as an example of an employer being found to have wrongfully dismissed an employee, because of the employer's own bad behaviour...
  
  [1974] ICR 428 a famous labour law case concerning the owner and gardener of the estate.