Wood Norton Hall

Details

This list entry was subjected to a Minor Enhancement to amend the description and sources on the 23 August 2022

SP 04 NW
897-0/3/10000

NORTON AND LENCHWICK
Wood Norton Hall

GV
II*

Country house. 1897, by G.H.Hunt, for Duc d'Orleans. Red brick with freestone dressings and some timber-framing with pargeted panels; plain machine tile roofs with coped parapeted gable ends. Brick axial, gable-end and lateral stacks with brick shafts and corbelling.

PLAN: Large mansion with principal rooms on the south front and with the entrance side on the east with the entrance hall in the north east comer leading to an axial corridor behind the principal rooms and with the services at the back. Jacobethan style.

EXTERIOR: Two and three storeys and attic. Asymmetrical south garden front of 1:2:1:3:1:2 bays, the three single bays are gabled and advanced and have ashlar three-storey canted bay windows with cartouches and arms and date in pinnacled gable above; between the gabled bays the first and attic floors are timber-framed with pargeted fleur-de-lis in the panels and gabled dormers; between the two right hand gables a three-bay colonnade with a balustrade above; large lateral stack on the right with stone corbelled shaft with panel containing Royal cipher and crown. Lead drain pipes and rainwater heads with Royal cipher and crowns. The asymmetrical east entrance front is of 1:2:1 bays, first floor of central two bays is timber-framed as on south front, the outer bays are gabled and advanced, the left as on south front, the right larger with stepped gable and large polygonal turrets and large carved stone Royal arms in the gable, canted oriel on the first floor and three-centred arch doorway on right with crowns, Royal cipher and fleur-de-lis in the spandrels; inside the porch large carved stone arms and doors with carved panels and fine repousse door-plates.

INTERIOR is sumptuously fitted out; most of the rooms are elaborately panelled and ceiled; there are intricately detailed door panels, over-doors, door-plates and elaborate chimney pieces; inside the fireplaces there are cast-iron fire-backs with arms and fleur-de-lis. Above the panelling in some of the corridors and above the stair dados there are tapestries with fleur-de-lis and Royal ciphers; the staircases are finely carved, have arcaded balustrades and carved crowns on the newels. One of the original bathrooms remains intact with a panelled ceiling, marble walls and bath with shower surmounted by a crown. Some of the original light fittings survive. The roof has been rebuilt after a fire and the attics were gutted.

HISTORY: In 1872 the estate was bought by the Duc d'Aumale, the fourth son of the King of France. After his death in 1897 it passed to his great nephew the Duc d'Orleans, who rebuilt Wood Norton Hall. The Duc d'Aumale was pretender to the French throne and the claim passed to the Duc d'Orleans in 1897. The family left Wood Norton Hall in 1912. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) purchased Wood Norton Hall in 1939 before the Second World War broke out, in case hostilities necessitated the need to move out of London. By 1940, the site had become one of Europe’s largest broadcasting centres. After the war, Wood Norton became the BBC’s engineering training centre.

Since the early C20, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has grown into a public service broadcaster of international repute. Aiming to inform, educate and entertain, the BBC plays a prominent role in British life and culture. The BBC was formed on 18 October 1922 as a Company, with the responsibility to provide a public radio broadcast service in Britain. It is the world’s oldest national broadcaster. The BBC’s first broadcast was a news bulletin on 14 November 1922. At first the daily six hours of news and entertainment programmes reached perhaps only tens of thousands of listeners. The Company’s growing national importance was recognised when it became a public corporation by Royal Charter on 1 January 1927.

Expansion of the BBC’s transmission station network, continuing increases in airtime and growth in the number of people owning a radio set licence meant that, by 1939, BBC programming was listened to in about 75% of British households. The BBC began broadcasting the world’s first regularly-scheduled high-definition television service on 2 November 1936. By the time of the BBC’s centenary in 2022, its radio, television and online services were being used by on average five million adults every minute of the day and night.

Listing NGR: SP0169747089

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

354842

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Cox, B G, Wood Norton Hall Near Evesham, (1975), 226 and 227
Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: Worcestershire, (1968), 226-227
Hendy, D, The BBC. A People’s History London: Profile Books, (2022)

Websites
BBC Group Annual Report and Accounts 2020/21, accessed 2022 from https://downloads.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/reports/annualreport/2020-21.pdf#page=6
BBC 100 History – Wood Norton Hall, accessed 2022 from https://www.bbc.com/historyofthebbc/buildings/wood-norton/

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