{"id":788232,"date":"2026-10-01T06:02:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T06:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/788232\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T06:02:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T06:02:10","slug":"rochdale-council-wins-downton-shabby-high-court-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/788232\/","title":{"rendered":"Rochdale Council wins &#8216;Downton Shabby&#8217; High Court case"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">An American man has lost his legal bid to take ownership of a historic mansion for \u00a31.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Hopwood DePree, who claims ancestral links to the Grade II-listed Hopwood Hall in Middleton, Rochdale, said he was &#8220;incredibly disappointed&#8221; after a judge at the High Court in Manchester ruled against him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">DePree, an actor and filmmaker, argued a 2017 agreement with Rochdale Council gave him the option to buy the manor house after securing planning permission to restore and redevelop it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">However, Judge David Hodge KC found the conditions required for ownership of the property to transfer had not been met.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Despite its current state, Hopwood Hall was described as being in the top 10% of most important listed buildings in England, the court heard.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">DePree&#8217;s plans included a wedding venue, hotel accommodation and visitor attractions aimed at bringing the hall back to life.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">However, Rochdale Council decided in 2022 not to transfer ownership of the hall to DePree and later locked him and a group of volunteers out of the site.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The court heard the legal costs were about \u00a3150,000, with the council expected to seek an order requiring DePree to pay them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An American man has lost his legal bid to take ownership of a historic mansion for \u00a31. Hopwood&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":788233,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-788232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=788232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788232\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/788233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=788232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=788232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=788232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}