Hopwood Hall
Hopwood Hall is a Grade II* historic house in Middleton, Greater Manchester, England, which was the ancestral country home of the landed gentry family of Hopwood who held it from the 12th century, passing to the Gregge (later Gregge-Hopwood, then Hopwood) family and remaining in their possession until it was closed up in 1922. The Hall was sold in 1946, and after a series of temporary residents, by the 1980s it had fallen into disrepair; in 2018 it was placed under renovation by the new owner, an American actor who is descended from the Hopwoods through John Hopwood (1745–1802). Hopwood Hall was founded as a moated site. Later, the property had pleasure grounds and an extensive park with scattered woods. Features in the grounds included a kitchen garden, ice house, ha-ha, Italian garden, fountain, corn mill and small cross-shaped bower or grotto. Hopwood Hall also gives its name to an electoral ward in the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale and to Hopwood Hall College, a further education college with a campus within the original estate grounds. History and architecture The property is conjectured by historians to have first been built upon in the 12th century, possibly by Normans in the period