Ragley Hall

Ragley Hall stands in the Warwickshire countryside eight miles west of Stratford-upon-Avon. The stately home belongs to the Seymour-Conway family, Marquesses of Hertford, and was built by Edward Conway, first Earl of Conway, to designs by William Hurlbert. Robert Hooke later made changes and the interior was remodelled three more times in the 18th and 19th centuries by James Gibbs, James Wyatt and William Tasker. The house became a meeting place for philosophers and scientists who visited Anne Conway, including Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Elizabeth of Bohemia.

The family’s finances once threatened the building with demolition after the death of Hugh Seymour, sixth Marquess of Hertford, in 1912. During both world wars it served as a military hospital, and after the Second World War the eighth Marquess restored the house. In 1983 Graham Rust painted the mural ‘The Temptation’ on the southern staircase, showing family, friends and pets. The Jerwood Sculpture Park opened in 2004 but closed eight years later, though the parkland remains cared for with National Lottery support.

Today Ragley Hall hosts weddings and film shoots rather than daily public tours. It has appeared in Doctor Who, The Crown and Love Is Blind: UK. The park still holds events and the house’s interiors feature Gibbs’s saloon, Wyatt’s staircase and Rust’s mural. Visitors can walk through the grounds where the Jerwood Sculpture Park once stood, and see the cricket club pavilion beside the estate.