Aston Hall, It’s Sale

This part of the history marks the end of the years of the Holden family’s domination of Aston, of which few obvious signs remain. A modern road is named Holden Avenue. Their chief monument however is their home, Aston Hall. This is not the old hall of the Hunts and the first Holden’s, which Robert Holden II presumably pulled down when he built the present Hall. A rainwater head on the 18th century house bears the date 1735, otherwise nothing is known of its building. It has three storeys high with central Venetian windows on the two main façades. Inside there is a good 18th century staircase and 16th or 17th century paneling in two rooms on the top floor. Ionic porches were added in the 19th century, later probably in the 1830’s, the stables and outbuildings were remodeled, and at some time in the 19th century, considerable additions were made to the house. These included a fine ballroom with bay windows. 

The conservatory at the back was probably built on in the 1900’s. A park had been created about the Hall by the 1760’s and a map of the 1790’s shows gardens, a fish-pond (which may already have been very old) and a long narrow plantation of six acres nearby, Kelly’s directories speak of ‘extensive’ grounds, and pleasure gardens were part of the property in the 1898 sale to Winterbottom. T.H. Mawson redesigned the garden for Winterbottom in the 1900’s. There has always been a farm attached to the Hall, but after the 18th century, rebuilding farming operations were probably confined to outbuildings. By the 19th century when Winterbottom sold there was a bailiff’s house and extensive farm buildings belonging to the home farm. Aston Hall and its grounds were bought by Nottingham Corporation in the 1924 sale and it has been a hospital ever since. 

The 1924 Sale and the Break-up of the Aston Hall Estate 

After Winterbottom’s death in 1924, the Aston Hall estate was broken up into lots and sold. The sale catalogues describe it as contains 1,561 acres and consisting of Aston Hall, its grounds and Home farm, altogether 88 acres, eight dairy and stock farms (two of them described as being in Shardlow), 14 small holdings, Alderslade House, the greater part of the village of Aston on Trent including 64 cottages, the village hall, Post Office, Blacksmiths and other shops, the White Hart Inn, the Malthouse Buildings in Derby Road, the Brickyard Plantation, the Globe or California mine at Chellaston (but within the boundaries of Aston) with the plaster mill, engine house etc., and mining rights for gypsum, the advowson of Aston on Trent Church, the reputed manors of Weston and Aston on Trent and fishing rights in the Derwent, Trent and the canal (Trent and Mersey). The two ‘Shardlow’ farms contained 180 acres, though the Glebe farm appears to have been in Aston; with the exception of these farms and 100 acres and more in Weston, the whole estate appears to have been in Aston. 

Their tenants at the 1924 sale purchased the village post office, the White Hart Inn, and many of the cottages and smaller properties, whilst the Gotham Co. Ltd bought the plaster mine and mining rights. The fate of the extensive accommodation, lands, and farms is not known, but Kelly’s Directory of 1928 gives Edward Sutton and the Earl of Harrington as the principal landowners.