history

Just two families in 120 years

This glorious grade II listed Italianate country house was built as a family home towards the end of the nineteenth century for John Entwisle, the High Sheriff of Leicestershire. After the death of Mr Entwisle's second wife in the 1960s, the house passed to the Snowdon family who lived here till the present owners bought it in 1999.

The son of public servants

John Bertie Norreys Entwisle had public service in his blood. He was an only son, born in 1856 at Foxholes near Rochdale to a family in which his father, grandfather and great-grandfather had all been High Sheriffs of Lancashire. His grandfather was also MP for Rochdale. The family made their money through the Lancashire woollen mills.

John Entwisle subsequently moved to the Midlands where he became a successful local businessman. Census records for 1881 show him living as a bachelor in North Kilworth with a household retinue of nine. It was in that year that he married Sophia Dalton, niece of Baron Lisgar, the second Governor General of Canada.

A building fit for a High Sheriff

In 1888, aged just 32, John Entwisle became High Sheriff of Leicestershire. He must have felt the need for a home to match his status; in that same year he commissioned a Mr A E Purdie to design Kilworth House.

The entire project took two to three years. Accounts reveal that the cumulative costs of developing the building and grounds amounted to £39,000.

By 1890, Mr and Mrs Entwisle were firmly established in their new home. Mrs Entwisle's own meticulous records show that she retained five maidservants, one of whom – the second housemaid – earned just £22 a year. This was the era of grand entertaining at Kilworth House, when the cream of Leicestershire's Victorian society came to dine with the High Sheriff and his wife.

Promise unfulfilled

Sophia Entwisle died childless in 1916. Three years later, John Entwisle married again – to Florence, third daughter of Sir Alex E Ramsay. But she too remained childless.

So John Entwisle passed away in 1945 without issue, and the house and his entire estate passed to his second wife, valued at just over £210,000.

A new lease of family life

When Florence died during the 1960s, the Snowdon family bought Kilworth House. At last, almost a century after it was built, the house and grounds rang with the laughter and carefree joy of family life that John Entwisle had hoped for.

During the late 1970s, rock culture briefly touched on Kilworth House when Tony Iommi, the Black Sabbath guitarist, lived here while dating one of the Snowdon daughters.

The architect's vision restored

In 1999, the Snowdons sold Kilworth House to the current owners who began a meticulous project of restoration and redevelopment. Their vision was to secure the future of Kilworth House and its grounds, and transform it into a beautiful hotel that would delight visitors for many years to come.