Set high on a hilltop, the ruins of Sutton Scarsdale Hall loom over the M1 motorway as it carves its way through the broad valley below. Once this was an imposing Georgian mansion, one of the grandest houses in our home county of Derbyshire. It was built between 1724 and 1729 by Nicholas Leke, the 4th Earl of Scarsdale, in an ostentatious statement of his wealth and power. But today it’s a roofless, crumbling shell, a monument to extravagance and greed.
The decrepit state of the Hall today is a sad metaphor for the state of the Earl’s finances at the end of his life. The Sutton Scarsdale project was too ambitious, Leke’s finances simply not up to the job. Building Sutton Scarsdale Hall ruined him.
The 4th Earl of Scarsdale had no legitimate heirs, and following his death in 1736 the Hall was sold. In the decades that followed the building passed through various owners, but they never truly loved it in the way Nicholas Leke would have wished.
The final indignity came in 1919 when the Hall was sold to a company of asset strippers. They quickly reduced the once grand mansion to a dilapidated shell, with many of its finely decorated rooms being sold as architectural salvage by purchasers interested only in making a fast buck. However, some of the rooms still exist, albeit on the other side of the Atlantic. Three original interiors are displayed at the Museum of Art in Philadelphia; click here to see one of them in all its glory on the Museum’s website.
A visit to Sutton Scarsdale Hall today offers tantalising glimpses of Nicholas Leke’s vision. The eastern façade is particularly grand and features at its centre four towering, attached Corinthian columns topped with a triangular central pediment. It’s said that remnants of the fine internal plasterwork are still visible in some of the principal rooms, but when we were there we couldn’t get close enough to see – entry to the ruins is prevented by sturdy Heras fencing, presumably intended to protect visitors from falling masonry.
Adjacent to the Hall, and in much better shape, is the medieval Church of St Mary. Dating from the 14th century it’s still used for Sunday services, although how many worshippers attend them in such an isolated location is unclear. Doubtless the church was much busier during the Hall’s heyday a couple of centuries ago, before the rot set in.
Sutton Scarsdale Hall is now in the ownership of English Heritage, a government conservation agency. The aim is to stabilise the ruins, protecting what remains and render the building safe to visit. Reconstruction, however, is out of the question. For this once grand mansion, the glory days are over and will never return.
Now I'm 64 
Gosh, what a story! Folly and lack of money are not good companions. Glad the lovely church is still in use.
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Finding a rather splendid country church (which is totally hidden from view when driving through the valley below) next to the crumbling mansion was an unexpected but very welcome surprise.
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I should say so!
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It’s amazing how far people will go to try to impress others, only to ruin themselves!
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As my dear old mum would have said (in an entirely different context) he got what he deserved because his eyes were bigger than his belly! 🙂
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The beauty of European history has attracted many people, including myself. It is sad that keeping the history is not easy at all, especially when people put so much effect to develop into the modern world. I once borrowed a Britain village book from my former coworker. These villages are so beautiful!!!
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Yes, we have some beautiful, historic villages, but only a very small percentage of British people live in places like that 🙁.
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I wonder how many more Nikolas Leke and Scarsdale Hall stories there are. I imagine this kind of fate happened not infrequently to people and buildings.
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Although we have a wealth of grand houses scattered throughout the country, many others haven’t survived. The reason has often been financial, personal bankruptcy brought about by reckless ambition and/or downturns in the national economy. Some of these mansions have been re-purposed, for example as hotels or conference centres, but many more have simply been demolished and are remembered only through old photos or names on maps. What makes Sutton Scarsdale Hall special is that it has been frozen in time in its seriously dilapidated state, instead of being knocked down entirely!
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I think it would be challenging to preserve all of those older buildings. The upkeep today would simply be too expensive.
At least Downton Abbey survived, thanks to an American heiress. 🙂
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Highclere Castle, where Downton Abbey is filmed, proves your point. It had deteriorated so badly due to decades of underinvestment that by 2009 the real-life owners, Lord and Lady Carnarvon, had been forced to relocate to a cottage on their estate. But the huge popular success of Downton led to a surge in paying visitors, which brought in the income required to carry out urgently needed repairs to the Castle. We’ve never visited, but are hoping to put that right later this year if the easing of Covid restrictions continues. With luck the Earl of Grantham will be in residence, and hopefully Cason will still be doing his duty as butler. 🙂
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I hope you will encounter all your favorite characters. 🙂
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