Redesdale Hall, Moreton-in-Marsh

Redesdale Hall stands in the middle of the High Street in Moreton-in-Marsh, splitting the wide market street in two. It was built in 1887 to designs by Sir Ernest George for Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford of Batsford Park, later the first Lord Redesdale, and Historic England calls it an early example of the free Tudor style. It is listed Grade II.

History

The Victoria County History notes that the hall may stand on the site of the market hall built in the street by the eighteenth century. A plaque on the building records that it was put up in 1887 by Algernon Bertram Freeman Mitford in memory of his kinsman the Earl of Redesdale, who had died in 1886. Bertie Mitford, as he was known, had just inherited the Batsford estate from the earl. A diplomat who had served in Japan and China, he spent the next years rebuilding Batsford House, also to Ernest George's designs, and laying out the wild garden that became Batsford Arboretum.

The Mitfords and after

Bertie was later made Lord Redesdale, and he was the grandfather of the six Mitford sisters: his son David inherited Batsford when he died in 1916. The family sold the estate after the First World War to Gilbert Wills, later the first Lord Dulverton. The plaque records that the hall passed by purchase to Sir Gilbert Alan Hamilton Wills, who in 1951 gave it to the North Cotswold Rural District Council. Today it belongs to the Redesdale Hall Trust, and the town council says it needs urgent and extensive repairs. Punchline Gloucester reported in June 2024 that the trust's plans, costed at about £3m, included taking down and repairing the clock turret, and in May 2025 the bellfounders John Taylor reported hanging three clock bells in the cupola, which research had shown once held three.

What to see

The hall is two storeys of golden stone, rubble finished almost as smooth as ashlar, in six bays under a Cotswold stone roof. Two features break the roof line unevenly: a clock turret on the ridge, with pinnacles and a small cupola, and a tall crenellated chimney rising from a gable over a sundial on the east front. The ground floor is set in wide three-centred arches, four of them on the east side. According to the Victoria County History it was open at first, looking like a market though never used as one, until it was filled in in 1951. Two arches on the south are blocked and hold three-light mullioned windows, and the Redesdale arms are carved in a panel on the south front. Upstairs is a six-bay hall with an open arch-braced roof, a gallery and a fireplace in the French Renaissance manner, carved again with the Redesdale arms.

Visiting

Redesdale Hall is seen from outside, from the pavements on either side of the High Street, at any time and for nothing. The inside opens only when the hall is used for an event. The light is best on the east front in the morning, when the sun picks out the sundial and the chimney. Tuesday is market day in Moreton, when stalls line the street around the hall.

Getting there

Moreton-in-Marsh station is a few minutes' walk away, with trains from London Paddington in about an hour and a half, and the 801 bus links the town with Stow, Bourton and Chipping Norton. By car, the Old Market Way car park (GL56 0JY) is the nearest council car park. On foot, the Moreton and Batsford walk begins at the war memorial nearby, passes the hall at the start and goes on to Batsford Park, the Redesdales' estate.

Nearby

The probably sixteenth-century Curfew Tower is on the corner of Oxford Street opposite. The Redesdale Arms, named after the same family, the White Hart Royal, the Swan Inn and the Manor House are all on the High Street. So is Huffkins, a café and tea room with a courtyard and garden. At Batsford, about a mile and a half west, are the arboretum and the family's estate church, St Mary's, and over the hill is Blockley, with its church and the Russell Spring.