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 century and remained in the property until the 1940s.
Gunpowder plot conspirator Guy Fawkes visited Edmund Hopwood – who was a noted witch hunter – before his botched bombing attempt. Poet Lord Byron also stayed at Hopwood Hall in 1811 even giving the family the gift of a fireplace which survives to this day…