Lowesby Hall

Lowesby Hall is a large Grade II* Georgian mansion in the parish and former manor of Lowesby, eight miles east of Leicester in Leicestershire. It is a famous fox-hunting seat in the heart of the Quorn country. The poem "Lowesby Hall" by the Victorian English foxhunting MP William Bromley Davenport was a parody on Alfred Tennyson's 1835 poem Locksley Hall.
In the mid-17th.century the manor of Lowesby was acquired by Richard Wollaston , son of Henry Wollaston, a citizen of London in 1669, himself the younger brother of Sir John Wollaston , Lord Mayor of London in 1643, and second son of Edward Wollaston of Perton in Staffordshire by his wife and cousin Elizabeth Wollaston of Trescot Grange, Staffordshire. He was thus descended from a junior branch of the Wollaston family anciently from Staffordshire and later settled at Shenton Hall, Leicestershire and Finborough Hall in Suffolk. He appears to have been a gun-founder. A Richard Wollaston served in a man-of-war and in 1650 received a gunner's certificate. He was described in 1650 as a "Master Gunner" on drawing from stores five barrels of gunpowder for a display on the launch of two frigates at Deptford. He has been described as "Cromwell's gun founder", and certainly held a high position in the Ordnance Department and was responsible to the Ordnance Commission. He had two sons Josiah and John , who in 1669 purchased from Thomas Johnson a house at Wormley in Hertfordshire then occupied by their father Richard. Also in 1669 John purchased the Manor of Ponsbourne, formerly possessed by Sir Thomas Seymour, Lord Admiral of England. In 1673 Richard purchased a moiety of the manor of Wormley which was inherited by his son John thence to John's son Richard who in 1692 purchased the remaining moiety except the manor house of Wormley Bury. In 1685/8 Richard bequeathed a moiety of two farms in Essex to charity. In 1690 a year before his death he applied for the return of the sum of £10,000 he had loaned to the Prince of Orange, by then King William III. The Treasury Records contain the entry: "£140 paid to John Wollaston for the use of his father Richard on a/c of £10,000 part of £20,000 lent the King, and a further £50 on a/c of Poll Tax". Both these were Secret Service payments. On his death in 1691 he left land valued at £100 to the poor forever, £20 for clothing the poor in the parish of Woolmer, £30 to the parish of Whitchurch and £50 for 6 parishes in Leicester.
He had the following descendants:

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