Donington Hall

I took this photograph from the inside of the Donington Park Circuit looking across a point just before the Old Hairpin corner during what looks looks the Britcar race at the Ferrari & Maserati Festival of Racing meeting in May 2003.

It's Donington Hall, and the racing circuit is situated in what was once part of the grounds of the Hall. The Hall was built in the late eighteenth century for Francis Rawdon-Hastings, 2nd Earl of Moira, later created Marquess of Hastings and it remained in his family (one of whom was created Baron Donington in 1870) until 1901 when it was sold to Frederick Grafton, son of Lord Grafton of Stapleford Park. He never lived at the Hall and it was maintained by John Gillies Shields, the late Lord Donington's land agent, Frederick Grafton occasionally visiting for sporting and social purposes. During the First World War the Hall and grounds were transformed into a prisoner of war camp for German officers, then in 1929 the Hall was put up for sale again and bought by the land agent, John Gillies Shields. In 1931 the owner was approached by Fred Craner, a former motorcycle racer and now secretary of the Derby & District Motor Club asking to be allowed to use the roads of the Estate to create a racing circuit. This was agreed, and over the next few years the circuit was gradually improved, the first Grand Prix taking place there in 1935. It gained international prestige in 1937 and 1938 when the German Auto Union and Mercedes Benz teams took part in the Grand Prix, Auto Union's Berndt Rosemeyer and Tazio Nuvolari winning those races. On the outbreak of the Second World War the Estate was requisitioned by the Ministry of Defence and the Park was turned into a vehicle storage depot. It was 1956 before the Estate was handed back to the grandson of the pre-war owner, Major John Gillies Shields, who rented out parts of the Estate as farm land and opened the Hall to refugees from the Hungarian Revolution. In 1971 Tom Wheatcroft bought part of the Estate that included the motor racing circuit, rebuilding the track and moving his collection of grand prix cars to a museum that became known as the Donington Grand Prix Exhibition. When the Ministry of Defence occupied Donington Park a Royal Air Force airfield was built on land adjacent to the racing circuit and it was decommissioned in 1946. In 1964 the site was purchased by a consortium of local government authorities and after development work was opened as East Midlands Airport in 1965. In 1976 British Midland Airways bought Donington Hall, renovating it and using it as their headquarters from 1982. British Midlands Airways later became BMI and was taken over in 2009 by Lufthansa who sold it in turn to International Airlines Group in 2012 who quickly announced that many of the staff at Donington Hall were to be laid off. Donington Hall was then sold to the Norton Motorcycle Company who hand-build bikes at the nearby Hastings House and they now use Donington Hall as an events venue.