Belgrave Hall Museum and Gardens

Belgrave Hall and Gardens provides a sanctuary of peace and quiet in a busy suburb of Leicester.

The Hall was originally built between 1709 and 1713 by Edmund Craddock. Edmund Craddock didn’t live long after the Hall completed and in 1721, John and Helen Simons took ownership of the Hall – little is known about their activities. The Vanns lived there from 1767 to 1844 and they ran a booming hosiery business from the Hall and they used the outbuildings as warehouses. The family were quite charitable and gave generously to many charities including Leicester's first free school.

In 1845, John Ellis bought the Hall and moved in with his wife and children. A hugely successful local business man, he was responsible for bringing the railways to Leicester in 1833. The Ellis sister’s occupied the Hall after the death of their father. In 1923, after the death of the last Ellis sister; the Hall was sold to Thomas Morley and in 1936 the estate was sold to Leicester City Council for £10,500, approximately a third of its market value at that time.

In its current role, the room’s within the museum are designed to appear as we think they've been decorated and used in Victorian times for an upper middle class family. The Hall is famous for its ghostly goings-on and in 1998; Belgrave Hall became world-famous when two luminous figures were recorded on the garden's security cameras. Ghost hunters from across the world are still investigating the site.

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