Dowsby Hall

Dowsby Hall, Lincolnshire
Dowsby Hall from E.
Location	Dowsby, near Bourne, Lincolnshire
Coordinates	52°50′59″N 0°21′09″W / 52.8498°N 0.3524°W / 52.8498; -0.3524Coordinates: 52°50′59″N 0°21′09″W / 52.8498°N 0.3524°W / 52.8498; -0.3524
OS grid reference	TF1105229307
Built	between c.1610-1630.
Rebuilt	1798, probably following demolition of s. facade of the house
Architect	attributed to John Thorpe
Architectural style(s)	Jacobean
Listed Building – Grade II*
Designated	6 May 1952
Reference no.	194255
Location of Dowsby Hall, Lincolnshire in Lincolnshire

Dowsby Hall is an early 17th-century house situated in Dowsby, Lincolnshire, England, and 6 miles (10 km) to the north of Bourne. Originally a much grander house, attributed to the architect John Thorpe, it was converted to farm house in the late 18th century. It is listed Grade II*. From about 1920 to 1987, it was the home of Henry Burtt, who suggested the idea of the radio programme The Archers to the BBC producer Godfrey Baseley.

The land on which the house stands was acquired by Thomas Rigdon of Chartham in Kent when he married Anne heiress of Anthony Villiers, whose mother had been a member of the Roos family, who had lived in Dowsby for eight generations. It the passed to his son Sir William Rigdon who died in 1610. At this point the property was purchased by Richard Burrell, a citizen and grocer of London. It is not clear if Sir William had started building the hall at this time or if the hall was built for Richard Burrell. An altered rainwater head, dated 1630, might even indicte that the building could be that late. The Dowsby Hall remained in Burrell ownership into the 18th. century and passed by marriage to Thomas Foster, who sold the hall with its farmland to a Mr Green in 1798. It is thought that the hall may have been in a dilapidated state by this point. John Green appears to have had demolished the southern portion of the house and the main entrance. The house was now extensively remodeled internally and the front door moved to the north side. The house had been drastically reduced in size presumally so that it would now be suitable to use as a farmhouse. It may have been at this time or earlier that some of the windows of the house had been bricked up, presumably to avoid Window tax. John Green was succeeded by James Dunn, a successful sheep breeder and then by the Dean family who successfully exported sheep to Argentina and they gave the village its church clock and the village hall as a First World War Memorial.

Around 1920 the Dowsby Hall estate was purchased by Trinity College, Cambridge and Henry Burtt became the tenant farmer. Burtt was a substantial and innovatie farmer, farming land in Dowsby, Rippingale and elsewhere. At one point Burtt was the largest producer of blackcurrents in Britain- his blackcurrants were juiced to provide fruit juice for Ribena - and was the moving force for the establishment of the Lincolnshire Quality seed scheme, which was a forerunner of worldwide seed quality control. In 1946, the BBC Radio producer Godfrey Baseley, later to become first editor of The Archers, came to Rippingale to make a programme called Farm Visit. Henry Burtt and his son Stephen showed him their land all round Rippingale and explained their unusual crops and methods. Two years later, the BBC organised a national conference, to discuss how to get more farmers listening to radio. It took place in Birmingham Town Hall on June 3, 1948 and produced nothing new until Burtt stood up and famously said: "What we want is a farming ‘Dick Barton'," and sat down again, to laughter from the audience. Burtt then worked with Baseley on the idea and Baseley seems to have modelled the characters of Dan and Phil Archer on Henry Burtt and his son Stephen. Henry Burtt died in 1987 at the age of 94, and in that year Trinity College sold Dowsby Hall, but retained the surrounding farmland.