The Dukeries
Thoresby Hall
The extensive parklands and woodlands of Thoresby extend from Ollerton, in the south, northwards to the Welbeck boundary. The house itself was one of the last to be built on such a vast scale. Thoresby is the quintessence of Victorian concepts. It stands for all the orderliness of life in the middle of the last century when everyone had his part to play in society, knew what that part was and played it to the best of his ability. The many towers, cupolas and gables of this enormous building represented the benevolent, unassuming authority of the landed classes - where the immensely rich landowner could talk man to man with his gamekeeper, play cricket with his footman and have a common bond of mutual respect and affection with the humblest on his estate. The only hints at 'class warfare' was a distrust of the new manufacturing tycoons who were rising to power and riches - a distrust shared equally by the inhabitant of castle and cottage.
It is said that there is an echo of the spirit of Disraeli's Young England in the way that Sydney William Herbert Pierrepont, 3rd Earl Manvers (1825-1900) rebuilt his family seat, abandoning the largish comfortable old mansion by the lake and commissioning the brilliant and fashionable architect Anthony Salvin to design him a romantic Elizabethan palace on the scale of Burghley. Though he built a house planned to stand for a thousand years he could not have known that in less than a century social revolution would make such houses anachronisms and that the sturdy walls would crack as a result of coal mining far beneath. On the other hand it might have afforded him some comfort to know that his would be the last family to hold on and actually live in the house long after his neighbours had moved out of theirs.
The famous carved chimneypiece in the library showing the Major Oak and figures of Robin Hood and Little John.
In 1989 the hall was bought by Australian company Roo Management with plans to convert it into a luxury hotel . It is now owned by Warner and it a luxury Hotel and Spa.
The Dukeries and Sherwood Forest
Holme Pierrepont and Earls of Kingston