Lowewood Museum
Wormleybury in Hertfordshire

Wormleybury

Created 21 June, 2008

The north-east view of Wormleybury early in the 19th century.The present building, which is a typical example of the country house architecture of the eighteenth century, is not the first house here. The earliest record we have of one is that, about the year 1500, a Dr. Edward Sharnbrook, D.D., Prebendary of St. Paul's Cathedral, who was then Rector of Wormley, built a house here. This apparently stood somewhat to the north of the present building. We do not know what kind of a house it was, but it would probably be of timber and plaster.
The large tithe barn connected with it stood on the site of Falcon Hall, and during the excavations for building this in 1928, the foundations of the barn were disclosed. When the Tookes were in occupation of Wormleybury in the seventeenth century one
Thomas, who was Auditor of the Court of Wards and Liveries, was an ardent Royalist and quarrelled bitterly with his two sons who were on the Parliament side. It appears that about 1651 the house was destroyed by fire, whether by accident or malice is not known, and Tooke, who was by this time penniless, was driven to live in a house in the village, where he died in poverty in 1670.

The house would seem to have remained in ruins till about 1733, when a John Deane, then lord of the manor, built another house on the site. This was destined to have an even shorter life than the first, as in 1767 Abraham Hume had the house pulled down, employing the architect Robert Mylne to erect an entirely new one, which is the building we see to-day. The house was completed in 1770, by which time Abraham Hume had been made a baronet. His son, the second baronet, employed the famous architect Robert Adam to make extensive alterations here, some of his well-known workmanship being still to be seen inside the house.

Last updated: 19 July, 2008