Rowley Hall, Approved School, Stafford

Description:The main entrance to Rowley Hall. At the date of this photograph it would have been an Approved School.

In 1808, the Rowley Hall estate was auctioned at the Swan Hotel and bought by a prominent local solicitor William Keen who demolished the old, dilapidated hall and built a new Regency style Hall in its place in 1813. He bought back land and established grand landscaped gardens. He died at Rowley in 1828 following a fall from his horse whilst journeying to Newcastle, which resulted in what he thought was a minor injury to his leg, neglecting its care.

The estate was inherited by his brother and in turn his son-in-law Robert Hand who needed capital if he was to continue to develop the estate. Unable to attain a good price through auction in 1851, he devised a plan to continue living in the Hall by dividing the estate into small plots, selling it to his own development company and then raising capital by selling shares in the company.

In 1866/7 the Staffordshire Land and Building and Improvement Company Ltd started building 'middle-class housing', designed by Stafford architect Robert Griffiths, in Rowley Park with local shareholders as diverse as Michael Bass (the Burton Brewer), Maria Butler (a laundry maid at Tixall Hall) and many Stafford businessmen.

By 1930 it was known as Rowley Hall Training School which had transferred from smaller premises on the Sandon Road. This was a girl's Reformatory. In 1933 it became an Approved School providing training in gardening and carpentry. In 1973 it became a Community Home with Education under the control of Staffordshire County Council: it closed in the 1980s.

The Hall is a Grade II listed and has been a private hospital since 1987.