Source: Manchester Evening News Emergency repair work has begun to stop an historic home from crumbling. Hopwood Hall in Middleton was a grand family home for centuries, but is now in a precarious state after being left empty and ravaged by the elements. A new push to save the hall was launched by American actor
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Source: Marketplace Hopwood DePree is a Hollywood actor, screenwriter and producer who’s just embarked on a new career: historic house restoration … on the other side of the Atlantic. Sitting in Los Angeles and googling his family tree, DePree discovered that for centuries, the Hopwoods had owned an ancestral home near the town of Rochdale… Read full
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Source: The Times It is a story worthy of a Hollywood film. A successful actor-cum-producer browses the internet in the early hours from his home in sun-drenched LA and discovers that his unusual name links his ancestry to a dilapidated country pile in a former industrial town in northern England. Now Hopwood DePree XIV is
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Source: Daily Mail A Hollywood director who discovered his ancestors lived in a stately home in Rochdale has started refurbishing the run-down estate after securing a grant of £276,000 from Historic England for critical structural repairs. Hopwood DePree, 47, discovered he was a direct descendant of the family who built Hopwood Hall in the 14th
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Source: Rochdale Online Hopwood Hall Estate is being awarded a grant of at least £276,000 from Historic England for critical structural repairs. The grant, match-funded by Rochdale Borough Council, will enable the Grade-II* listed Hall to be stablised and weather-proofed, a milestone in the renovations as historically significant parts of the building are in danger of collapsing at any
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Source: The Guardian With his blinding white smile, tanned skin and bleached blond hair, the new American owner of one of the north of England’s most important manor houses does not travel incognito. “Mr Hopwood, is that you?” The middle-aged women walking their dogs were very excited to encounter Hopwood DePree driving down the crater-filled
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