The
Ferrars | William Hopkinson | T
S Eliot | The Community | The
Church
Little Gidding has a rich and varied history.
The background to Ferrar House, along with glimpses of some of
the more influential
visitors, makes fascinating reading.
The Ferrars
When they came to
Little Gidding, they found a parish devoid of people (though
sheep were plentiful), a dilapidated Manor House, and a church
used as a hay barn and pig sty. On arrival the widowed and
redoubtable Mrs Ferrar Senior required the church to be cleared
so she could say her prayers, and only then turned to the Manor
House that was to be her home. The household, numbering up
to forty or so persons faced a formidable task but they set
to and restored the Manor House to habitation and the church
to regular daily worship. Some of what they did to the church
remains, but of the Manor House there is no visible trace save
a terrace in a field. In the 1700s what remained
of the Ferrar family left Little Gidding.
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William Hopkinson
During the 1850s William
Hopkinson acquired the estate and, in his turn, set himself
both to restore
the church and to
bring the estate into profitable farming use. By this time
the Manor House was so dilapidated that it was demolished (as
far as is known there are no illustrations of what must, by
then, have been little more than a hovel) and in its place,
but nearer to the church, Hopkinson built the red brick farmhouse,
Manor Farm, now still standing though somewhat altered, and
the range of other farm buildings.
More information is available on the Little Gidding Church website
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