Trout

Sculpture

The Reverend William Cole (b. 1714 – d. 1782), was a Cambridgeshire clergyman and antiquary, known for his extensive manuscript collections on the history of Cambridgeshire and of Buckinghamshire. In his diaries he wrote about his friend Mr Richardson who owned the Hall in the 1700s.

“He bought a small estate at Hinxton, where he made a pretty neat box, and where I used to spend many happy days… And because Capt. Richardson’s small box was built by him for a private retreat and for fishing retirement, and by the late Lord Monfort and his friends always stiled Trout Hall, Mr. Jones to preserve the name, when he rebuilt it had the figure of a large trout carved in the stone and placed over the chief door case fronting the garden.”

– William Cole of Milton by W.M. Palmer, 1935.

The carving of a trout still exists above the entrance on the east side of the Hall. It dates somewhere between 1748 and 1756 when John Bromwell Jones rebuilt the building. Other trout motifs can be found within the Pompeiian Room as well as trout weather vanes on the spires of the old stable block, now part of the Conference Centre.