Sir Gervase (The Gentle) CLIFTON of Clifton and Hodsock (1515-1588)

Name:	Gervase (The Gentle) CLIFTON
Sex:	Male
Name Prefix:	Sir
Name Suffix:	of Clifton and Hodsock
Nickname:	The Gentle
Father:	Robert CLIFTON ( -1518)
Mother:	Anne CLIFFORD ( - )

Individual Events and Attributes

Birth	26 Mar 1515
Death	20 Jan 1588

Marriage (1)

Spouse	Mary (Maria) NEVILE (1522?-1564)
Children	Elizabeth CLIFTON ( - )
	George CLIFTON (1567?-1588)
Marriage	17 Jan 1530

Additional Information

Marriage

Can it be true that she was only 8 when they married?

Marriage (2)

Spouse

Winifred THWAITES ( - )

Individual Note 1

Sir Gervase The Gentle

 

One of the first Clifton's of note is Sir Gervase Clifton. He has shared his unusual Christian name with eleven other prominent members of the Clifton family. He was very popular in the court of Queen Elizabeth who referred to him as 'Gervase The Gentle'. Gervase Clifton had also been a favourite at the courts of Henry VII and Edward VI. He had a reputation as an impeccably courteous man 'of great authority in peace and war'. In 1544 he fought in France at the siege of Boulogne and in 1569 he defended Doncaster from a group of noblemen rebelling against Queen Elizabeth. He lies in a large tomb in the church that stands next to Clifton Hall, St.Marys. His only son, George died at the age of 20, a year before Gervase. George's son, another Gervase, was born after George had died but four months before Gervase died. Since Gervase The Gentle had no other heirs, the child became the holder of Clifton estates.

 

The Cliftons held the manors of Clifton and Wilford for nearly 700 years and are descended from one of William The Conquerors Knights, Alvared. Many of the Cliftons were destined to rub shoulders with royalty. The family assumed the name of 'Clifton' from the village when they purchased the lands in 1272 from the de Rhodes family. One branch of the family likewise assumed the name 'Wilford'. The family home became Clifton Hall on the summit of the Clifton heights overlooking the a large bend in the River Trent.

 

A gentleman of considerable authority, both in peace and war, in four successive reigns, Sir Gervase Clifton is mentioned in a distich penned by Elizabeth,

 

"Gervase the gentle, Stanhope the stout,

Markham the lion, and Sutton the lout."

 

Sir Thomas Nevil Kt.

Blazon: Gules a saltire argent charged with a martlet sable [impaling Furnival]

Arms found on a monument to Lady Joan Nevil [nee Furnival] at Barlborough Church. She married Sir Thomas De Nevile [d.1406] Lord of Sheffield and Hallamshire.

 

John Nevil was sheriff of Yorkshire 1518, 1523 1527. He resided at Chevet Hall near Crigglestone. John was implicated in the Rising of the North in 1541against Henry VIII because he did not notify his superiors of the impending rebellion. His daughter Mary Nevile married Sir Gervase Clifton, Sheriff of Nottingham who held the Wakefield Manor.

Individual Note 2

Gentleman of the old school

It is a truth university acknowledged that Clifton Hall is in want of a life

by marcus binney of the times

THE BRIDESHEADS of English architecture — country houses that have grown through the centuries — always have a special fascination. The most fortunate have remained with ancient families for generations. Others creep back on the market after decades of institutional use.

 

One such is Clifton Hall, south of Nottingham, which had, until half a century ago, the rare distinction of being in the hands of Cliftons since the Norman Conquest. A poignant memorial in the churchyard by the house records the death in 1944 of Lieutenant-Colonel Percy Robert Clifton, CMG DSO, last Lord of the Manor to live here. After the war Clifton Hall became a girls’ school and then a teacher training college that was absorbed into Nottingham Trent University.

 

When institutions occupy country houses, it is almost an iron law that first they demand major extensions and then, after 15 to 20 years, decide that the property is no longer suitable for their needs. Exactly this happened at Clifton Hall. The Grade I listed hall and nine acres have been sold to the Raven Group, which plans to remodel the house as apartments and is currently working on Tyringham in Buckinghamshire by the great Sir John Soane. However, under pressure from English Heritage, the major part of Clifton containing the splendid state rooms has been offered for sale as a single residence at what seems the bargain price of £500,000.

 

Leaving the M1 for Nottingham, you are confronted with a huge power station, rather a grim sight on a grey day. So the turning to Clifton village restores one’s faith in the English landscape, with almshouses and a grand dovecote (with no fewer than 2,300 nesting places) set on a village green that opens on to a long, winding village street. Clifton Hall stands at the end, past the stables now in the city council’s ownership.

 

The hall is sited on a bluff above the River Trent, although the majestic view has been all but planted out, perhaps to shield the sprawl of factories below. The long entrance front is impressive, built of pleasant pink Georgian brick with an indented centre uncannily similar to that of Nottingham Castle. Generations of Cliftons are a study in themselves. Sir Gervase the Gentle is credited with starting the present house in the 1560s. His grandson, another Gervase, married no fewer than seven times, burying six wives and being followed quickly to the grave by the seventh.

 

Another Clifton is praised for “port and hospitality” exceeding the nobility, and for a “cheerful facetious spirit”. Inside the state rooms, layer on layer of history unfolds in confusing order. The present entrance lobby, with dividing arches on stout Corinthian columns, leads through to an elegant 18th-century stone stair. But this is not how you should see the house.

 

Instead, the double doors behind the colonnade should be thrown open so you enter direct into one of the grandest of all Georgian halls, possibly designed by the great apostle of English Palladianism, the Earl of Burlington, who designed a temple in the garden that was demolished in the 1960s. The hall is a soaring octagon rising the full height of the house. It was built for Sir Robert Clifton in about 1750 and has niches inset with casts of classical statues and a dome with gloriously rich acanthus decoration.

 

The octagonal hall leads to another imposing stair, which also leads on to a Jacobean great chamber with a colossal fireplace rivalling those at Hatfield House in Hertfordshire. It is attributed to John Smythson, son of the greatest of Elizabethan architects, Robert Smythson.

 

In the 1780s another Sir Gervase Clifton brought in John Carr of York, the architect who had a hand in almost every house of significance in the North of England in the late 18th century. Carr added a prominent bow to the end of the house as well as a wealth of fine plasterwork. The greatest thrill is the Pages Room dating from the 1630s, which has more than 50 deftly painted panels of soldiers in armour taken from a Dutch manual demonstrating the use of pike, halberd and musket. Close by is a Charles II bedroom with an ornamental plaster ceiling as thick with fruit and flowers as any Lucullan banquet.

 

Clifton thus presents a chance to buy a major slice of English architecture close to booming Nottingham and the motorway network. The asking price of £500,000 reflects the investment needed to de-institutionalise the house, for although the structure appears to be reasonably sound the process of recreating an elegant house, and rewiring and plumbing some 13,000 sq ft of floor space, will be very substantial.

 

The biggest question that remains is what will happen to the rest of the house and the 1960s teaching blocks. Rebuilding the carbuncle extension on the garden front in any form would be a crime. The separate teaching block backing on to the walled garden, if it is to be rebuilt, must be set back, as the Georgian Group suggested, further away from the house.

 

Better still might be to build inside the largely disused walled garden behind, which just happens to belong to the city council.

 

A major point arises here about the fate of the country house in the 20th century. When a council has granted planning consent for large unsightly extensions (presumably to itself) on the ground of essential educational need, should the site then be sold on the basis that these extensions can be replaced with other more lucrative uses, ensuring that any buyer will seek footprint-for-footprint replacement? In the interests of the Grade I listed building, these extensions should clearly be swept away and not replaced.

 

FPDSavills reports strong interest in the hall. If a buyer is found with a real commitment to restoring the house to its former splendour, he or she deserves strong support to ensure that the rest of the site is sensitively treated.

 

Priority should be given to quality, not quantity, of new replacement, which should also help to secure the best financial return.