Skip to main content
How did Wortley Hall become the 'workers' stately home'?
BRIAN CLARKE recently explained Wortley Hall's fascinating history at the South Yorkshire Festival, and here relates it for Morning Star readers
Wortley Hall [Jim Probert/CC]

WORTLEY HALL has two histories, the first concerning the family who built and lived in the hall and the second when it became “the Workers’ Stately Home.”

Wortley Hall was the ancestral home of the Earls of Wharncliffe – the lords of the manor of Wortley. The earliest recording being Alnus de Wortley, mentioned in the Pipe Rolls for 1165. During the English civil war of 1642-51, Sir Francis Wortley commanded a loyalist garrison based at Wortley Hall.  

Wortley Hall fell into decay until the mid-18th century, when Edward Wortley commissioned the rebuilding of the hall. In 1800, James Archibald Stuart Wortley and his wife Caroline Creighton should have taken up residence, but were unable to do so because for some reason the architect had omitted to include a staircase.  

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
Jeremy Corbyn
Your Party / 2 December 2025
2 December 2025

Your Party can become an antidote to Reform UK – but only by rooting itself in communities up and down the country, says CLAUDIA WEBBE

Locomotion
Features / 27 September 2025
27 September 2025

Two-hundred years ago, on September 27 1825, the world’s first passenger railway line was opened between Stockton and Darlington. MICK WHELAN, general secretary of Aslef, the train drivers’ union, reflects on the history – and the future – of Britain’s railway industry

TORY HIGH SOCIETY:  Sir John Ritblat
Features / 19 September 2025
19 September 2025

It is rather strange that Labour continues to give prestigious roles to inappropriate, controversy-mired businessmen who are also major Tory donors. What could Labour possibly be hoping to get out of it, asks SOLOMON HUGHES

Tolpuddle Martyrs tree
Lawman / 19 July 2025
19 July 2025

ANSELM ELDERGILL examines the legal case behind this weekend’s Tolpuddle Martyrs’ Festival and the lessons for today