A tour around England’s smallest county will inevitably draw you to Rutland Water — the country’s largest (by surface area) reservoir. Beneath the windsurfers and pleasure boaters lie the remains of Normanton Hall, an apparently ‘sensibly sized’ house complete with exceptional farm land.
The late Dowager Duchess of Ancaster in fancy dress for a fund raising ball in 1901. She was the last occupier of Normanton Hall.
Back in the early 20th century, after various marriages into the family, the owners of Normanton, the Willoughby’s, had become the Heathcote-Drummond-Willoughbys, leaving the family with a few too many large estates to manage on their hands. The death of Normanton Park’s incumbent Dowager Countess of Ancaster in 1921 forced decision making. First, the hall was let out for a few years, then, in 1924, the whole estate, including the picture-postcard village of Empingham, were put up for sale. With no buyers, and in a now-familiar story, the estate was split up for sale and the house’s contents and fittings marketed prior to demolition in late February 1925.
The death knell. Normanton was put up for sale in 1924 and advertised inside Country Life.
Editorial in Country Life at the time summed up the mood: ‘The regret when doom is passed upon any of the stately buildings that, in addition to the affection of a family, has been worthy of the pride of the nation. Unfortunately, such experiences are far from being rare at the present juncture of history, when the existence of so many great house hangs by a thread’.
After the fixtures and fittings were removed, a fire took the remains of Normanton. In 1976 the foundations and the vast amount of her arable land were sunk beneath 124 million cubic metres of water to create Rutland Water. Only the beautiful stable block, a few farm buildings and the top half of Normanton Church (the bottom half was filled with rubble and sunk, too) remain.
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