Sitting close to the banks of the River Trent, Gainsborough Old Hall is an imposing mansion largely built during the later 15th century. 

The hall was the seat of the Burghs from 1430 until 1596, and then sold to the merchant Hickman family, who resided there until around 1730.

Over the next two centuries the building was leased for various purposes – a fascinating mix of residential use, workshops and businesses, a theatre space and civic institutions – but has always been intimately connected to the Lincolnshire town of Gainsborough.

Harking back to its origins, Thomas Burgh II inherited the manor of Gainsborough in 1455 from his mother – his father had died shortly after his birth. Over the next two decades, he began rebuilding works on the estate.

Thomas’s works included the rebuilding of the main hall range, with the central great hall at ground level flanked by two-storey wings at each end. At the same time a long east range was raised at right angles providing extended private apartments.

Towards the end of the 1470s work was begun on a three-storey lodging range, erected on the footprint of the earlier west range. The next decade saw the addition of a fashionable brick tower at the north-east corner, and a vast new brick kitchen. These have been seen as discrete phases of work, but it may be more accurate to understand them as a single prolonged campaign to realise Sir Thomas’s ambitions for the manor.

History tells us that Thomas was a man of clear intent, who thrived on detail – a hands-on administrator who probably paid close attention to the design and construction of the new buildings at Gainsborough. He was also a pious man, making bequests to nunneries and friaries, and leaving funds to establish a chantry chapel in All Saints Church, also in Gainsborough, for a priest to say a daily mass for his soul.

When Thomas died in 1496, the estate was inherited by his eldest son, Edward, and later Edward’s son Thomas III.

With the Burghs moving away from Gainsborough, the manor was sold to William Hickman, a London merchant, who moved in with his first wife, Agnes, and his mother, Rose, in 1596. 

William and his second wife, Elizabeth, invested in the hall, fashioning a more modern and serviceable family residence. They focused on the east range, creating a suite of rooms at its south end and encasing much of the structure in brick, with wide windows and new fireplaces. Inside, their tastes were displayed through fashionable oak panelling and painted walls with intricate foliage patterns, tapestries and other fine fabrics, rich furniture and jewelled ornament.

William was an astute and ruthless businessman, asserting his rights as the owner of the manor and manipulating his authority to maximise both his control and income. By all accounts, he was not a popular man. 

The property eventually passed to Sir Henry Bacon in the early 19th century who adopted the Hickman name as a condition of his inheritance. In 1848, he struck an agreement with the town to commission repairs and convert elements to create three new institutions. The great hall was cleared to make way for the town’s Corn Exchange, and the first floor of the east range was overhauled as grand Assembly Rooms, with premises for the Literary Institute in the room below. The restorations were carried out by Denzil Ibbetson, a railway engineer.

By 1890 the Corn Exchange and Literary Institute had closed, and the Assembly Rooms seem to have been much less used.

In 1924 Hickman Beckett Bacon approached Sir Charles Peers at the Ministry of Works with an offer to place the Old Hall into the care of the state. That offer was declined, but Hickman’s nephew Sir Edmund Castell Bacon continued to work towards the long-term protection of the building. In 1949 he handed responsibility for the buildings to a new group, the Friends of the Old Hall Association (FOHA). Over the next two decades the FOHA, an entirely voluntary group, raised substantial funds to carry out extensive restoration work to the building, and opened the hall as a visitor attraction and community resource. In 1969 the Old Hall was transferred into the care of the state and is now managed by English Heritage.

Today, it remains one of the best-preserved medieval manor houses in England with lots for visitors to explore. 

The medieval kitchen’s high ceiling and hulking oak beams make it one of the best surviving examples from the medieval period. You can also take a seat in the magnificent Great Hall, a place of entertainment, eating and politics.

In the 15th and 16th centuries, important guests would have feasted with the lord and lady of the manor on dishes such as venison porridge with saffron, roast peacock and jellied fruit slices. Later Gainsborough Old Hall would have been hushed by the preaching of John Wesley; and then in another time, filled with mirth and song as the space became a 19th-century theatre.

The more adventurous may like to climb the old steps to the top of the tower at Gainsborough Old Hall; you’ll be rewarded with fine views of Gainsborough town and across the river Trent to North Nottinghamshire. From this vantage point, you can really get a sense of the Old Hall at the centre of a large medieval estate, and at the heart of the local community.

In 2024, Gainsborough Old Hall received a £222,000 grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fund which funded the creation of an employability skills and development programme for the community, with the creation of a new role of community engagement coordinator and new volunteering opportunities as well as revitalising the garden and enabling conservation works to the building itself.  “We are so grateful to The National Lottery Heritage Fund for this grant which has allowed us start the next chapter here,” said Louise Fountain, Property Manager at English Heritage. “Gainsborough Old Hall has always, and will continue to be, at the heart of the local community and we look forward to a new era for this magnificent property.”