Spencer-Stanhope

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The Spencer-Stanhope family lived at Cannon Hall, located between the villages of High Hoyland and Cawthorne in Barnsley. The Spencer family originally moved to Yorkshire from the Welsh borders, since the Royalist sympathies were putting them at risk. The family acquired Cannon Hall in 1660, and slowly made improvements to what was originally a small fortified manor house. In the 1760s the bachelor John Spencer set about a major programme of improvements, hiring John Carr of York to extend the house and Richard Woods of Chertsey to improve the parkland in the style of Capability Brown. When John died without heir, his possessions passed to nephew Walter Stanhope of Horsforth, who prefixed his own name with that of his uncle's, creating the Spencer-Stanhope line. Walter embarked on further building, and did much entertaining at Cannon Hall. William Wilberforce, the anti-slavery campaigner, was a regular guest.

The Hall finally passed out of the family's ownership in 1951, when it was purchased by Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council, and converted into a museum.