Description:Drakelowe Hall was an Elizabethan mansion which stood on the south bank of the River Trent, close to Burton-upon-Trent. It was set in the grounds of an historic agricultural and sporting estate of around 756 acres, which included an ancient wooded deer park with a herd of Fallow Deer. Over the years around twenty eight generations of the Gresley family had thought of the estate as their ancestral home.
One of the features of Drakelowe Hall was the dining room known as the Painted Room. This room was painted in the 18th century with a continuous landscape to create the illusion that the visitor was not in a room at all but outside, surrounded by picturesque scenery. Most of the paintings represented views in the Peak District and were attributed to Paul Sandby. He was a founder member of the Royal Academy and famous for his landscapes. In 1793 he was commissioned by Sir Nigel Gresley to paint the huge panoramic scene across all of the four walls of the dining room.
In later years Sir Robert Gresley was forced to sell the estate due to taxation and dwindling finances and the contents of Drakelowe Hall were sold in July, 1931. The outlying portions of the estate were sold in January 1933, and the remainder which included the Hall and Deer Park were offered for sale at The Queens’ Hotel, Burton-upon-Trent, on 19th December 1933. The Hall was demolished in 1934. However, a number of Grade II listed buildings remain (2023) including a stable block and cottages, sunken garden river terraces, a garden wall and gate lodge piers. One of the series of paintings from the dining room was saved and purchased by the Victoria and Albert Museum. The scene represents a view of Dolbadarn Castle on Llyn Peris in north Wales with Snowdon beyond.
The site was earmarked for development in the early 1940s. This location was chosen for the construction of Drakelow Power Station mainly because it was a large estate and close to the River Trent, the Leicester to Burton Railway, the Burton to Tamworth Road and it was near to the East Midlands Coalfields. Work officially started on the site in 1950 to build Drakelow A power station, which was commissioned in 1955. The second, much larger Drakelow B power station was commissioned in 1960, and Drakelow C power station, which was even larger than the A and B power stations, came onto the National Grid in 1964. Later all three power stations were decommissioned and Drakelow A closed in 1984, B closed in 1993 and C in 2003, these major structures have since been demolished and the area cleared for redevelopment with housing, an employment park and a local centre with leisure and educational facilities.
Photograph from 'Boots Fine Art Views of Burton', published by Boots Limited in the 1890s.