Description:Looking south from Park Drive to the courtyard entrance of Trentham Hall. Through the stone gate piers there is a glimpse of the carriage porch. The courtyard buildings have been fenced off and are awaiting renovation and redevelopment.
The building on the left was originally the original Trentham Savings Bank, set up by the 1st Duke it began in 1816 and closed in 1880. On the first floor, there was a central safe, encased by a floor to ceiling jail cage, and in the centre a large safe. The cage could only be opened from the inside. This building is attached (on the left) to the former Riding School.
Trentham Hall was built in the 1630s for the Dukes of Sutherland. The Caroline house was replaced in the early eighteenth century by one in a Classical style. Capability Brown and Henry Holland worked on the landscape and hall between 1768 and 1778.
The house was redesigned in an Italianate style in the nineteenth century by Sir Charles Barry, who also laid out Italian gardens to the front of the hall.
Trentham Hall was abandoned by the family as a permanent residence in 1905. In 1910 the Duke of Sutherland offered the hall to the County of Staffordshire and the Borough of Stoke-on-Trent. The offer was refused and the building was demolished, apart from the west front and stable block (the brewhouse still stands). The tower was re-erected on the Sandon Hall Estate.
Today the grounds have been developed as a tourist attraction and exhibition, conference and leisure centre.