Lowesby Hall is a large Grade II* Georgian mansion in the parish and former manor of Lowesby, eight miles east of Leicester in Leicestershire. It is a famous fox-hunting seat in the heart of the Quorn country. The poem "Lowesby Hall" by the Victorian English foxhunting MP William Bromley Davenport (1821–1884) was a parody of Alfred Tennyson's 1835 poem Locksley Hall.Poems of the Chase, collected and recollected by Sir Reginald Graham, Bart. London, 1912. Lowesby Hall, by W. Bromley Davenport, pp.120-129.
History
Burdet
The Domesday Book of 1086 lists the manor of Glowesbi as one of those held by "Countess Judith", namely the Norman noblewoman Judith of Lens (c.1054/5-c.1090), a niece of King William the Conqueror, being a daughter of his sister Adelaide of Normandy, Countess of Aumale, by her husband Lambert II, Count of Lens. She married Earl Waltheof of Huntingdon and Northumbria (d.1076) the last of the Anglo-Saxon earls and the only English aristocrat to be executed during the reign of William the Conqueror. Before the Norman Conquest of 1066 she held 14 manors, all within the hundred of Wraggoe, Lincolnshire, and in 1086 she held 191 manors as a tenant-in-chief of William the Conqueror.opendomesday.org Her tenant at Lowesby was Hugh Burdet,opendomesday.org who is listed in the Domesday Book as holding six manors in total, all in Leicestershire, namely: Braunstone, Gaulby, Lowesby, Rearsby, Sysonby and Welby.opendomesday.org Lowesby continued to be held by the Burdet family until the early 15th century. Sir William Burdet (died pre-1309) of Lowesby was a Member of Parliament for the county seat of Leicestershire in 1297. The Burdet family had been dedicated supporters of the Order of St Lazarus's English headquarters at Burton Lazars since its earliest days but relations soured in 1294 when the Order appropriated the tithes to Lowesby for themselves. This was not popular with the villagers and sporadic riots broke out over the following few years. The vicar was excommunicated and in 1297 the churchyard was "polluted by bloodshed" by the actions of Sir William Burdet.Marcombe, David (2003). Leper Knights. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, p.202 On the ending of the male line, the heiress, Joan Burdet, daughter and heiress of John Burdet of Lowesby married Thomas Ashby (d.1435), MP,L. S. Woodger, biography of Thomas Ashby (d.1435) of Lowesby, History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1386-1421, ed. J.S. Roskell, L. Clark, C. Rawcliffe., 1993 and thus Lowesby passed into the ownership of her Ashby descendants.
Ashby Thomas Ashby (d.1435) of Lowesby was the son and heir of Richard Ashby of Lubbesthorpe and Welby in Leicestershire, by his wife Agnes Breedon, a daughter of William Breedon, MP, and sister and heiress of Ralph Breedon of Breedon. Stained glass windows survive in All Saints Church, Lowesby, showing the coats of arms of Burdet, Ashby (Argent, a lion rampant sable a chief gules) Zouche of Lubbesthorpe and other related families.Paul Sharpling, Leicestershire & Rutland Stained Glass Gazetteer Thomas Ashby served twice as a Member of Parliament for Leicestershire, in 1414 and 1419. Although the manor is recorded in 1309 as containing 12 households, and in 1377 containing 25 tax payers (equivalent to about 10 families), by 1487 the village had been razed to the ground and the land converted to pasture. In 1563 the manor contained only the Ashby Family at Lowesby Hall and three labouring families.https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1012438?section=official-list-entry The ancient parish church survives in its entirety, 200 metres to the south-east of Lowesby Hall, and 450 metres to the north and east of Lowesby Hall survive extensive village earthworks, showing the foundations of houses and lanes, a strip of well preserved ridge and furrow ploughland and three large dry fishponds, all classified in 1978 as a Scheduled Monument.
Wollaston
In the mid-17th.century the manor of Lowesby was acquired by Richard Wollaston (1635–1691), son of Henry Wollaston, a citizen of London in 1669, himself the younger brother of Sir John Wollaston (died 1658), Lord Mayor of London in 1643, and second son of Edward Wollaston of Perton in Staffordshire by his wife and cousin Elizabeth Wollaston of Trescot Grange, Staffordshire.John Burke. A genealogical and heraldic history of the commoners of Great Britain and Ireland, enjoying territorial possessions or high official rank; but uninvested with heritable honours (Volume 3) He was thus descended from a junior branch of the Wollaston family anciently from Staffordshire and later settled at Shenton Hall, Leicestershire History of Parliament biography of his grandson Richard Wollaston (c. 1669–1728, MP and Finborough Hall in Suffolk. He appears to have been a gun-founder. A Richard Wollaston served in a man-of-war and in 1650 received a gunner's certificate. He was described in 1650 as a "Master Gunner" on drawing from stores five barrels of gunpowder for a display on the launch of two frigates at Deptford. He has been described as "Cromwell's gun founder", and certainly held a high position in the Ordnance Department and was responsible to the Ordnance Commission. He had two sons Josiah and John (died 1692), who in 1669 purchased from Thomas Johnson a house at Wormley in Hertfordshire then occupied by their father Richard. Also in 1669 John purchased the Manor of Ponsbourne, formerly possessed by Sir Thomas Seymour, Lord Admiral of England. In 1673 Richard purchased a moiety of the manor of Wormley which was inherited by his son John (died 1692) thence to John's son Richard who in 1692 purchased the remaining moiety except the manor house of Wormley Bury. In 1685/8 Richard bequeathed a moiety of two farms in Essex to charity. In 1690 a year before his death he applied for the return of the sum of £10,000 he had loaned to the Prince of Orange, by then King William III. The Treasury Records contain the entry: "£140 paid to John Wollaston for the use of his father Richard on a/c of £10,000 part of £20,000 lent the King, and a further £50 on a/c of Poll Tax". Both these were Secret Service payments. On his death in 1691 he left land valued at £100 to the poor forever, £20 for clothing the poor in the parish of Woolmer, £30 to the parish of Whitchurch and £50 for 6 parishes in Leicester. He had the following descendants: Josiah Wollaston (1652–1689), son, who predeceased his father. He married Elizabeth Lawrence, sister of Sir Edward Lawrence, 1st Baronet (c. 1674 – 1749). His brother was John Wollaston whose son Richard Wollaston (c. 1678 – 1728) married Faith Brown and was MP for Whitchurch, Hants. 1695–1708. Isaac Wollaston (1673–1737), son and heir of Josiah, who married Sarah Lawrence. He was Sheriff of Leicestershire in 1697. Sir Isaac Wollaston, 2nd Baronet (died 1750) son and heir, who in 1749 by special remainder succeeded his grandmother's brother Sir Edward Lawrence, 1st Baronet (c. 1674 – 1749) in the Lawrence baronetcy, which title changed thenceforth to the Wollaston baronetcy. His wife died in 1753 leaving as heir an infant son Sir Isaac Lawrence Wollaston, 3rd Baronet. Sir Isaac Lawrence Wollaston, 3rd Baronet (died 1756), infant son, on whose death the baronetcy became extinct. The family estates having been divided in 1777 by Act of Parliament between his two sisters, Sarah Wollaston, the eldest, who later married Taylor White (the son of the barrister and arts patron Taylor White), and Anne Wollaston, their younger sister, who married in 1772 Sir Thomas Fowke (died 1786), (who was knighted in 1777), who in 1784Obituary of Frederick Fowke, 1st Baronet, published in Leicester Chronicle or Commercial and Leicestershire Mercury Leicester, 31 May 1856, became Groom of the Bedchamber to Prince Frederick, Duke of Cumberland, the younger brother of King George III. Lowesby became the share of Anne Wollaston (Lady Fowke),English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest, quoted in http://www.parksandgardens.ac.uk/index2.php?option=com_parksandgardens&task=site&id=2162&preview=1&Itemid= and became the seat of her descendants the Fowke Baronets, who retained ownership until the 1900s.
Fowke
Sir Thomas Fowke The Fowke family of Lowesby was formerly seated at Gunstone in Staffordshire. Anne Wollaston's husband was Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Fowke, Groom of the Bedchamber to the Duke of Cumberland, the son of Lieutenant-General Thomas Fowke, Governor of Gibraltar.
Sir Frederick Fowke, 1st Baronet Anne Wollaston's son was Sir Frederick Gustavus Fowke, 1st Baronet (1782-1856), a prominent Freemason who served as Provincial Grand Master of Leicestershire from 1850 to 1856 and as Senior Grand Warden for the United Grand Lodge of England in 1821.https://drdavidharrison.blogspot.com/2016/02/sir-frederick-gustavus-fowke-first.html In his youth he had come into frequent contact with the Prince Regent and his royal brothers, the former giving him the soubriquet “Fred Fun”. He was said to be the perfect country gentleman, in the mould of Addison's "Sir Roger de Coverley".Obituary of Frederick Fowke, 1st Baronet, published in Leicester Chronicle or Commercial and Leicestershire Mercury Leicester, 31 May 1856 He was an "active and zealous" Tory politician and a member of the Pitt Club, and served as President of the Leicestershire Architectural and Archaeological Society. On 18 September 1818 he gave a "splendid fête" at Lowesby Hall ... on the occasion of the christening of his two sons, honoured by the presence of the Duke of Rutland and of members of the leading county families. Magnificent apartments were constructed expressly for the accommodation of the visitors and a princely liberality was evidenced in all the arrangements. Upward of 400 persons sat down to supper. Lowesby is said indeed to have resembled one of the gorgeous scenes of oriental fiction on this memorable occasion. But it is to be lamented that its effects on the worthy baronet's fortune were serious and prolonged in their continuance.Obituary of Frederick Fowke, 1st Baronet, published in Leicester Chronicle or Commercial and Leicestershire Mercury Leicester, 31 May 1856
In 1814, aged 32, he married Mary Anne Henderson, the only daughter of Anthony Henderson, MP for Brackley in Northamptonshire in 1803, and was created a baronet in the same year. He died in 1856 and was survived by his wife, 4 sons and 2 daughters, and was succeeded in the baronetcy by his eldest son Sir Frederick Thomas Fowke, 2nd Baronet.
Sir Frederick Thomas Fowke, 2nd Baronet