Gunby Hall

(1878), whose daughter and son-in-law gave the Gunby estate, including 1500 acres, to the National Trust during the Second World War]] The house was originally built in 1700 for Sir William Massingberd, 2nd Baronet, on the site of a small manor house that had once belonged to a family called Gunby. The stable block was built in 1735 by Massingberd's nephew and heir William Meux-Massingberd. A two-storey, five-bay extension wing was added in two stages in the late nineteenth century. William owned the house until 1781, after which it passed to his grandson Henry, who lived away and died in France in 1784. From him it passed to his daughter Elizabeth Mary Anne Massingberd who had married…

"Gunby is on the edge of the Lincolnshire Wolds, near Spilsby, some 8 mi from Skegness and not far from Tennyson's home at Somersby. It was of Gunby that Tennyson wrote the lines a haunt of ancient peace." It was substantially extended in 1873 and again in 1898 with the addition of the North Wing and Clock Tower. The Hall contains significant collections of art, furniture, porcelain and silver including original pieces by Sir Joshua Reynolds, Edward Lear, William Morris, Lord Tennyson, William Holman Hunt, James Boswell, Samuel Johnson, Thomas Sheraton and Lucio Rannuci.