Relhan Collection : 54 SE side of Bourn Hall, the seat of the Earl of de la Warr

Relhan, Richard, 1782-1844

Relhan Collection

<p style='text-align: justify;'><p>1819   </p><p>Bourn Hall is sited within the C11 castle built by Picot, Sheriff of Cambridge, as the protected centre of his huge Cambs estate. His castle consisted of an irregular ring-work and bailey with a water-filled ditch. Layer (1586-1640) says there was here a ‘<i>high castell ye ruines and monuments remaining to this day</i>’. A red-brick hall with a U-shaped plan and two rear wings was built c.1602 (rainwater head date) for John Haggar, a successful sheep farmer who had been acquiring a considerable estate in Bourn since 1554. His descendant, Admiral John Haggar, married an heiress and moved to Waresley, selling the Bourn estate to Balthazzar Lyell, d. 1740 (<b>49</b>). When Balthazzar’s widow died it passed to Henry Leyell (<b>50</b>), his nephew, whose daughter Catherine married John Richard West, 4th Earl de la Warr <b>(52</b>). This powerful family also owned manors in Haslingfield (<b>200</b>) and Harston, and furniture, architectural features and building materials were moved between the estates. Relhan’s drawings are of the Hall reaching completion of alterations, 1817- 1819, for the 5th Earl de la Warr by his architect John Adey Repton in an Elizabethan Revival style, which was also used in decoration of the old hall and other main rooms. He added polygonal bay windows and a porch to the main elevation, with crenellated parapets, and introduced some fine features, including chimney pieces, C17 panelling and a staircase taken from Haslingfield Hall (<b>55</b> and <b>200</b>). Relhan shows the decorative detail on the shafts of the rebuilt terracotta chimneys which bear letters L, D and S. John Adey Repton, possibly with his more illustrious father Humphrey Repton, landscaped the grounds in a natural picturesque style. Norman Shaw completed the C19 alterations to the courtyard, and filled in the remaining area between the wings. The Bourn Estate was sold to the Briscoe Estate in 1883, and again in 1900 to John Chivers the jam manufacturer, who split it up. In 1980 Bourn Hall was purchased by Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards who established Bourn Hall Fertility Clinic as the world’s first clinic dedicated to treating infertility by <i>In Vitro</i> Fertilisation (IVF). Further alterations were made but pieces such as (<b>55</b>) and (<b>206, 207</b>) are cared for here.</p><p>Davis EM pers comm; Palmer 1935; RCHME 1968; Taylor 1997; VCH 1948 and 1973</p></p>