Bradfield Hall was built in the mid to late 18th century. Some sources give a date of 1764.[1]
The house was most likely built for Stephen Wilson.[2]
There is a row of four almshouses, located southeast of the house, that have a plaque on them stating "'BRADFIELD POOR HOUSE ERECTED AT THE EXPENSE OF STEPHEN WILSON ESQ 1810 AND GIVEN BY HIM TO THE PARISH FOR EVER 1811".[3]
When Wilson died in 1814,[4] the house, along with properties on Whitehall in London and elsewhere went to his goddaughter, Katherine Stewart Connop, who was married to the Rev. John Connop.[5]
The house remained in the Connop family until 1898, when the house and contents were sold. A variety of famous 18th-century carved Chippendale-style mahogany chairs, now known as the "Bradfield Hall Chairs", some now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art[6] and some now at the Lady Lever Art Gallery,[7] along with the so-called "Barrington Bed", now in the possession of the Victoria and Albert Museum,[8] were auctioned at this time.
The Radfords held the house for the first half of the 20th-century. It remains in private hands.
Architecture
A large red brick house in a Georgian style. It has a "curiously informal" entrance.[1] Was originally three storeys. The top floor incorporated Diocletian windows on either side of the center. This level was removed in around 1950 and then reinstated around 2006.[1]
^Wood, Lucy (2008). The Upholstered Furniture in the Lady Lever Gallery, Vol I. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, with National Museums Mercyside. pp. 365–379.
