Portal:Staffordshire/Selected article/2

Shugborough Hall is a country house and estate, situated in Great Haywood, Staffordshire. Previously the home of the Earls of Lichfield, it is now owned by the National Trust and maintained by the leaseholder, Staffordshire County Council.

The Shugborough estate was owned by the Bishops of Lichfield until the Dissolution of the Monasteries around 1540 and thereafter passed through several hands until it was purchased in 1624 by William Anson, a lawyer, of Dunston, Staffordshire, and ancestor the Earls of Lichfield. In about 1693 his grandson William Anson (1656–1720) demolished the old house and created a new mansion. The entrance front then to the west, comprised a balustraded three-storey, seven-bayed central block. In about 1748 his great grandson Thomas Anson commissioned architect Thomas Wright to remodel the house, which was extended with flanking two-storey, three-bayed pavilions linked to the central block by pedimented passages. At the turn of the 18th century the house was further altered and extended by architect Samuel Wyatt, when the pavilions and passages were incorporated into the main building and a new porticoed entrance front with ten Doric order pillars was created at the east for Thomas Anson, the 1st Viscount Anson.

Around 1750 the architect James Stuart,  created a number of follies and monuments in the grounds. These include the Chinese House, the Triumphal Arch based on Hadrian's and the Doric Temple as well as the Temple of the Winds and Shepherd's Monument and the  Cat's Monument.