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Lot Essay
Richard William Penn Curzon was the son of the Hon. Penn Assherton Curzon and Sophia, Baroness Howe, daughter of the famous Admiral Lord Howe (1726-1799). Richard succeeded his paternal grandfather as Viscount Curzon in 1820 but assumed the name of Howe and was created Earl Howe in 1821. The same year, he married Harriet, daughter of the 6th Earl of Cardigan and secondly, in 1845, Anne, daughter of Admiral Sir John Gore. In the 1830s Lord Howe was Lord Chamberlain to Queen Adelaide, wife of William IV.
Gopsall Hall stood between the villages of Shackerstone and Twycross, set in a thousand-acre park and visible on the skyline from miles around. Designed for Charles Jennens (1700-1773), a friend of Handel and librettist of the Messiah, by John Westley circa 1747, Gopsall Hall was the most expensive house constructed in Leicestershire in the eighteenth century. The exterior was Palladian but the interior had lavish rococo plasterwork. Gopsall was demolished in 1951.
Gopsall Hall stood between the villages of Shackerstone and Twycross, set in a thousand-acre park and visible on the skyline from miles around. Designed for Charles Jennens (1700-1773), a friend of Handel and librettist of the Messiah, by John Westley circa 1747, Gopsall Hall was the most expensive house constructed in Leicestershire in the eighteenth century. The exterior was Palladian but the interior had lavish rococo plasterwork. Gopsall was demolished in 1951.