CONTEXT 180 : JUNE 2024 39 DORIAN PROUDFOOT and TOM BROMET Hardwick Old Hall, Derbyshire Conserving the ruins of a great Elizabethan country house and facing the challenge of stabilising features, once in the interior, that are now exposed to the weather. Hardwick Old Hall, a great Elizabethan country house largely constructed between 1587 and 1597, stands as a romantic ruin. It is Grade I listed and a scheduled monument. At the time of the project it was under the guardianship of English Heritage within the National Trust owned estate of Hardwick. Old Hall is associated with one of the most influential women of her time, Elizabeth Shrewsbury, or Bess of Hardwick as she is better known. Old Hall’s age, form, architectural details, surviving and decorative scheme all contribute to its value. It gives a rare insight into general building design and construction in the 16th century and, more specifically, it tells us a great deal about the construction techniques and formulation of design ideas used on the adjacent, and slightly more modern, Hardwick Hall (1590–1597). The Hardwick family had been established at Hardwick since at least the end of the 14th century, and Hardwick Old Hall incorporates fragments of an earlier house built by the Hardwicks on the site. Bess of Hardwick (1521–1608) bought the house in 1583 when her brother James, the former owner, died. Bess completely redesigned and greatly enlarged the existing house between 1587 and 1597. Bess’s husband (George Talbot, one of the richest men in the country) died in 1590 and with her inheritance Bess decided to build a new house, Hardwick Hall, right next to Old Hall, between 1590 and 1597. During the construction of the ‘New’ Hall, Bess continued to live in Old Hall. When she eventually moved into her new house Old Hall continued to be used for staff and guests for a number of years, with the two buildings forming part of one household. In the 1750s, Old Hall was partly dismantled to provide stone for Chatsworth House. The west wing continued to be lived in until at least the end of the 18th century. During the 19th century the building deteriorated following further lead and stone removal. In 1912 the SPAB carried out extensive conservation works on the site. In 1956 internal floors were removed. The estate was transferred to the National Trust in 1959. English Heritage (then the Ministry of Works) took up guardianship of Old Hall, and carried out significant repairs and interventions each decade until the 1990s. This has left an interesting record of the evolving conservation techniques, from the SPAB in 1912 and the Ministry of Works in the 1960s, 1970–80, 1990s and 2000s, which all View of the ‘new’ Hardwick Hall from Old Harwick Hall (All photos: Damian Griffiths for Donald Insall Associates)
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