Monument record MDR12096 - Gardens and former parkland to Ringwood Hall, Staveley

Ringwood Hall stands in a Victorian garden, primarily in character, with specimen trees, a belt of woodland on the road frontage, lawns, herbaceous border and rose garden on the site of a large conservatory. It includes an Italianate garden with terrace, balustrade, urns, steps, box edging and gateway. (1) Bagshaw, in 1846, refers to Ringwood Hall as '…a beautiful modern mansion situated on an eminence with tasteful pleasure grounds ornamented with shrubs and evergreens…'. Sometime after 1895 the house was sold to C P Markham whose father had married one of Sir Joseph Paxton's daughters. It is not, therefore, impossible that Sir Joseph could have had some input into re-modelling the grounds. Markham junior used to open the grounds to his employees at the Staveley Iron and Steel Company on Sunday afternoons and in 1926 transferred the estate to the Company for their benefit. (2)