QUANTRILLS - Key Persons

Bishop Vesey, created Bishop of Exeter in 1519, rebuilt Moor Hall in 1527. The Bishop was born in a farmhouse on the estate where the Hail was to be built and which still stands today. It is reputed that the Bishop ultimately had 140 servants and a regular guest at the Hall was Henry VIII, who visited the area for hunting days in Sutton Park. The regular visits of Henry VIII had influence in Sutton Coldfield being granted The Royal Charter in 1528.

In 1509, John Bailey paid a half year rental of £5 for the Manor of Aston to William Lycett, Lord of Aston Manor. The Fowke family, who owned many substantial properties in Staffordshire, purchased the Manor for £850 in 1574, subsequently selling it in 1621 to the Norman family Ducie, who lived there until 1720. Robert Ducie, a respected man throughout the country, was knighted and appointed Lord Mayor of London from 1630 - 1631. In 1730 Richard Scott of Barr Hall had ‘a fine new house' constructed and the old mansion, which was a half timbered building, was used as a stable. In 1765 the Hall was restyled by Humphry Minchin who had taken a 99 year lease on the property, with the grounds strategically planted to create a fine Georgian Landscape. William Tennant then purchased the Freehold of the Estate in 1820 and employed the services of James Wyatt, a famous Architect and a Landscapist named Eames to create "a little paradise amidst the surrounding desert" (the front cover illustration shows the Hall as it was in 1801). The Estate was sold in July 1828 to William Leigh of whom little is known and in 1844 the Honourable Edward Swynfen Parker Jervis had the Hall purchased for him by his father, the Second Viscount St. Vincent. During the period 1857-1859 the Hall was updated giving it a style of Finistral Italianate Palazzo and in 1872 a lease was granted to a society for the "Treatment and Cure of Inebriety". In 1907 Little Aston Hall was purchased along with its 1500 acres of Estate by an eminent Birmingham solicitor, Joseph Bennett Clarke. Clarke retained the immediate 100 acres of deer park and gardens around the Hall for his own personal use, along with Barns Farm. The rest of the Estate was sold a few months later, including four hundred acres on which Little Aston Golf Course was developed. Clarke conceived the plans to give over large areas of the Estate grounds for residential development and in order to ensure that only high quality residences were built, restricted covenants were enforced. Cautious development proceeded until 1925 and only 16 houses were built, including Claverdon and Stonehouse, each with approximately seven acres. In the same year, Little Aston Park Estate was sold again and further plots of land were made available for individual residences.

Princess Mary, prior to becoming Queen Mary, was tutored by the Bishop and stayed at the Hall over a number of years. Bishop Vesey died in 1555 and the Estate passed to his nephew John Harman, who had the Hall rebuilt. John Hackett, the great nephew of Harman later inherited the Hall and carried out rebuilding once again, with the Hackett family residing at Moor Hall until 1863.