Hopwood Hall

The oldest part of Hopwood is a timber-framed hall that has been dated to 1426. Each new century saw the house expand so that by 1666 it was the largest in the parish with 14-hearths standing in a quadrangle around a small courtyard (60-by-30-feet) with the great hall on the south side opposite the entrance to the north. Subsequent additions - the most part of which were made in the latter half of the 19th century - have followed the same plan to one extent or another although the courtyard has been encroached on and reception rooms are now found on all four sides. The large west wing housed the servant's quarters and the older portions of the house are evident by the use of smaller bricks.

The Hopwoods were seated here until 1763 when Dr Robert Hopwood M.D. - younger brother of Edmund who in 1755 added 'the Georgian Library' - died without issue. After his widow died here in 1773, his will directed that Hopwood Hall was to pass to his cousin (through their descent from the Wrigley family) Edward Gregge, of Chamber Hall in nearby Oldham. It was said that Gregge had stepped in for his cousin as a substitute in the army during the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745 and in gratitude Dr Hopwood chose him as his successor. On inheriting the estate, Edward assumed the name and arms of "Hopwood" by Act of Parliament and when he died in 1798 he left Hopwood Hall to his only son, Robert, while dividing Chamber Hall in equal portions between his three daughters.

From 1840, Robert Gregge-Hopwood made "considerable additions" to the house, among other things converting the chapel (dated 1690) into a billiard's room and adding a new Dining Room (1840). His wife, Cecilia, was one of the five famously beautiful daughters of Viscount Torrington, sisters of "Poodle" Byng, an eccentric wit and dandy who moved in the Prince Regent's set with Beau Brummell and later married their mother's maid.

"Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know"

On September 25th, 1811, a young Lord Byron on the cusp of his fame as a poet came to Hopwood Hall on his way to inspect his coal mines at Rochdale. But, finding himself surrounded by a bevy of beautiful women, what was supposed to be a stay of one night quickly turned into a sojourn of ten days. Initially he was shy and self-conscious and on the first night refused to come down to dinner on account of it being one of his "starving days". One of his fellow house guests, Mary Loveday, recalled, "he would rather not exist than be large and so he is a pale languid-looking young man who seems as if he could not walk upright from sheer weakness". He shunned fashionable clothes for a pair white linen pantaloons worn with a long gold chain about his neck and for the first few days was, "always prowling about in the two sitting rooms, taking up many books and reading a little in each; then watching us and seemingly inclined to talk," but when left alone in his company, although Mary liked him, his "fidgeting manner" made her feel ill at ease.

As the days passed, the man who just a few months later would be famously branded, "mad, bad and dangerous to know" relaxed and Mary Loveday remarked, "that he works himself up in a way quite to shock one; but these are evidently the paroxysms of the moment, for he is afterwards as gentle as a lamb". The poem that shot him to fame was Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812), the draft of which he almost certainly took to Hopwood.

Hopwood v Hopwood: "I Must Request You To Disinherit Him"

Robert Gregge-Hopwood died in 1854 when the estate drew a substantial income of £7,000-a year, principally from the coal mine (the Hopwood Colliery) they operated here. After his death, two wills were produced: the older one left everything to his eldest son, Edward, while the other revoked the former will and gave title of his estates to Edward's 8-year old son with Edward's brothers receiving significantly more money, all but cutting Edward out entirely. After a lengthy and costly legal battle that garnered "unusual (public) interest," the judge ruled that the second will had been obtained from Robert, "while incapacitated by age and infirmary, and under undue and improper influence".

Edward may have won the court's decision, but the case of Hopwood v Hopwood (1855) saw the family torn apart: Prior to inheriting Hopwood, Edward lived in Wales but towards the end of his father's life he returned to manage the household. Tensions soon began to rise and his heavy-handed manner led to an argument between him and one of his brothers that only served to make him more determined than ever to do things his way. Things came to a head in March 1853 when he ushered his father into the library and tried to rush him into signing a document that would ensure that none of his cheques could be cashed by his bankers unless they were countersigned by himself and one of his brothers, having explained to the family solicitors, "he does not understand what he signs, and is unfit to sign". This led to a confrontation with his sister-in-law, Mrs Hervey Hopwood, who put a stop to it on the grounds that Edward had neither explained to his father what he was signing nor discussed his decision with the rest of the family.

Having learned what it was that his son had tried to make him sign, Robert wrote to his solicitors: "You have my orders to communicate to my son, Edward John Gregge-Hopwood, that I do forbid him to appear at this place (Hopwood Hall) at all without my express permission, or to interfere with my affairs in any way, at his peril". Then, as if to add fuel to the fire, Edward published and circulated a pamphlet containing an account of these family squabbles, "reflecting severely on the conduct of his brothers". Now unable to forgive his son and heir, Robert instructed his solicitors: "In consequence of my son Edward's abominable conduct to me and mine, I must request you to disinherit him...".

"Re-Olding" Hopwood

Fortunately for Edward, the judge saw that his father had become irascible and of unsound mind in his old age and in 1855 he succeeded to his birthright with his wife, Susan Baskervyle-Glegg. They continued to extend and "antiquate" Hopwood Hall in the Tudor-Revival style under the direction of George Shaw, a well-known Liverpool architect; and, as someone put it, "re-olding" the quadrangular house as opposed to "renewing" it. The works continued up until the latter half of the 19th-century by which time the hall had swelled in size to 50,000-square feet with 60-rooms. In the meantime, Susan became something of an environmental activist as a pioneer for industrial smoke abatement.

At about this time (1896) a brief description of Hopwood and its furnishings appeared in the Journal of the Manchester Geographical Society: "One of the least known of Lancashire's historic halls... The hall is situate in and almost hidden by the beautiful woods surrounding it. It does not look a very ancient building outside, but is evidently older than it looks when access to the interior has been gained. Amongst other things Lord Byron's bed is shown and he is said to have occupied the room and the bed as they are now. Armour, paintings old and new, and tapestry are exhibited: but, the collection of old furniture, carved in the most beautiful and fantastic way, and the splendid collection of birds and animals, are perhaps the two (best) things about this wonderful collection...".

The End of the Hopwood Line (Nearly)

Edward died in 1892 and although he was succeeded by his only son, Colonel Edward R.G. Hopwood, by 1896 the Colonel had still not slept one night under its roof in consequence of the family feud that had erupted over his father's succession forty years before.

The Colonel was one of England's foremost sportsmen on the turf and in the field, beating all 230 of Europe's finest shots to win the Grande Prix de Monaco for pigeon shooting in 1879 ("the weather was cloudy and the birds English and very fast") marking him out as the best shot on the continent. In his younger years he was renowned as a winner of steeplechases and he was still hunting at age 86, and still in the saddle age 93. He kept a townhouse in London at 37 Hertford Street and was frequently abroad shooting and hunting either in Europe or Africa; and, although he listed Hopwood as his country seat, he rarely ever stayed there. The Colonel had two sons and two daughters - one of whom, Brenda, wrote thrillers under the pen name 'Patrick Leyton' - but after tragically losing both sons in World War I, without a male heir, he lost interest in Hopwood entirely.

In 1926, the Colonel auctioned off much of Hopwood's valuable furnshings at Sotheby's. The ornately carved Elizabethan four-poster bed in which Byron slept was sold to Sir Patrick Heywood M.P.' and other items sold included, "a very rare early Tudor arm chair, a set of three Chinese Chippendale chairs, a set of ten early Georgian single chairs, a fine William and Mary walnut secretary, a fine Hepplewhite bookcase, etc.".

Back in 1912, the Colonel had leased 247-acres of Hopwood's parkland to the Manchester Golf Club for a term of 35-years. In 1922, he put the entire Hopwood estate up for sale but there was little interest and it sat empty for nearly two decades until it was leased to the Lancashire Cotton Corporation during World War II. In the meantime, he bought Sandiway House in Hartford, Cheshire, which bore a distinct similarity to his family seat but was comparatively modern (1860) and about a fifth of the size. He died in 1942 and four years later (1946) his daughters succeeded in offloading Hopwood for £12,500 to the Catholic Order, De La Salle Brothers, who ran a religious teacher training college here. In 1990, it was acquired by Rochdale Council who, "left it to rot" for the next 25 years while a new building was put up next door that continues to house Hopwood College.

Hopwood's Hollywood Hero

In 1957, Hopwood Hall was given listed status as a building of historic interest and while that guaranteed its survival on the one hand, a lack of interest and funds saw it gradually rot and crumble into a perilous and ever-worsening state of disrepair. It had been several hundred years since anything resembling a knight in shining armour bearing the Hopwood arms had promised the village folk a future that would return pride and prosperity to Middleton; but, that's exactly what happened when history was turned on its head and a sun-tanned squire from Hollywood bounded onto the scene in 2014. 

Hopwood DePree is a direct descendant of John Hopwood (1745-1802), the founder of Hopwood, Pennsylvania (1791), who was a great-great-grandson of John Hopwood (1615-1682) who grew up in Middleton before settling in Virginia via Barbados. Having grown up hearing stories from his grandfather about a great castle in England where his ancestors once lived, DePree was delighted to discover that those rumours were not just a fairytale. 

On learning of the hall's precarious condition (he was told it would be beyond salvation within just five to ten years ) and having become disenchanted with the Hollywood lifestyle, DePree uprooted to Manchester where he has since dedicated his prodigious talent and energy into not only restoring his ancestral home, but galvanising local support and the necessary funding to turn it into a community arts center.