Forty Hall

The house was built between 1629 and 1632. It is generally said to have been built by Sir Nicholas Rainton, a wealthy London haberdasher who was Lord Mayor of London from 1632 to 1633. However Tuff, writing in 1858, says that it was built by Sir Hugh Fortee and bought by Rainton, quoting a 1635 survey describing a copyhold house "some time Hugh Fortee's, and late Sir Thomas Gurney's". Lambert also gives Fortee as the origin of the name. The detailed history of the house has until recently been poorly understood, since it is known to have been built in the 1620s, but has the external appearance of an 18th-century house. A detailed examination was carried out for Enfield council as part of…

The Hall's permanent exhibition tells the story of the house and its estate throughout the ages and looks at the life and times of Sir Nicholas Rainton and life in the 17th century through a range of visual and audio interpretation and displays. There is also a range of guided tours, led by a Jacobean character. The exhibition programme focuses on art, ecology and heritage.