Historic Hopwood Hall Estate to feature on Monday’s One Show

Hopwood Hall

Middleton’s historic Hopwood Hall Estate will feature on the BBC’s One Show at 7pm on Monday (3 September).

Hopwood DePree, an actor/producer from Los Angeles whose ancestral home is the Grade-II* listed Hall, has an exclusive legal agreement with the council to enable him to have up to five years to rescue the 12th century manor before he assumes full possession of his ancestral home, which has lay vacant for 30 years and is now on Historic England’s 'At Risk' register.

https://www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/2/news-headlines/118654/hopwood-hall-estate-regeneration-gains-momentum

Over the years, curator Bob Wall has religiously saved every single piece of plaster that has crumbled from the walls, in the hope that they can be restored, or at least inspire a replica.

The old hall dates back to feudal days, and still retains many structural and architectural features from the 14th century right until present day.

The original hall was of early timber construction, rebuilt in Tudor brick by John Hopwood during 1687-90.

Painstakingly intricate wood carvings, hundreds of years old, can be found covering the walls inside the hall, some of the earliest English Gothic in the country.

Some famous names who visited Hopwood Hall include Guy Fawkes, who visited Edmund Hopwood, a witch hunter, when he was in Manchester planning the Gunpowder Plot, and Lord Bryon, who stayed at the Hall in 1811. An ornate fireplace is nicknamed the ‘Byron Fireplace’, part of which is thought to have been gifted by the noble and installed by renowned Middleton architect, Edgar Wood.

Hopwood Hall was later taken over by the Lancashire Cotton Corporation before the manor house was acquired in 1947 by the De La Salle brothers for their teacher training college.

During the 1960s, new living, teaching and administrative quarters were built for 600 students, and the Hall became a centre for students, until Hopwood Hall College opened in 1990.

The One Show airs on BBC One on Monday 3 September at 7.00pm.