Charles Hanbury, 1st Baron Sudeley (1777-1858), seated in red upholstered chair, in black coat, brown waistcoat and knotted blue cravat; red curtain, foliage, pillar and sky background

Charles Hanbury was the third son of John Hanbury (d. 1784) of Pont-y-Pool Park, Monmouthshire whose family wealth came from the Pont-y-Pool Iron works, and his wife, Jane, daughter of Morgan Lewis of St. Pierre Park, Monmouthshire. Charles Hanbury married his cousin, Henrietta Susanna (1776-1839), only child and heiress of 8th and last Viscount Tracy of Rathcoole, owner of the large estates of Toddington Manor and Gregynog in Montgomeryshire. He assumed by Royal Licence the surname and arms of Tracy on his marriage and the couple settled in the Jacobean Manor at Toddington which was subsequently partly destroyed by fire in 1800. During renovation, the house was attacked by dry rot and Hanbury-Tracy decided to build a new house on higher ground. In March 1820, he laid the first stone of Toddington Manor which was designed to his own plans as a revival of Gothic architecture in a domestic setting. The house was to cost him more than £150,000 over a fifteen year period and was to receive much comtemporary acclaim. Toddington is considered by Robert Kerr to be 'one of the best of those supposed amateur works which in great measure led the way to the Gothic Revival at that early stage' (R. Hanbury-Tenison, 'The 1st Lord Sudeley as an Amateur Architect' in The Sudeleys -- Lords of Toddington, London, 1987).
A group of 580 architectural drawings and related images for the construction of Toddington Manor are to be sold in the sale of Printed Books, Manuscripts including Maps and Atlases, Christie's, London, 16 November 2005, lot 177.
Hanbury-Tracy took a leading part in the 1803 raising of the Montgomeryshire Legion and became a Lieutenant-Colonel in the regiment. He was Lord Lieutenant of Montgomeryshire in 1804 and served as M.P. for Tewkesbury from 1807-1812 and 1832-1837. On the strength of his designs for Toddington, he was appointed in 1835 as Chairman of the Committee to judge the designs for the new Houses of Parliament and took part in the disputes that followed the selection of the Barry-Pugin designs. It is due to Sudeley that Sir Charles Barry's designs were selected. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Thomas who enhanced the landscape of Toddington Manor but the manor was lost to the Hanbury-Tracys with the two bankruptcies of the 4th Lord Sudeley in 1893 and 1900.
This lot is sold with a medal of the St. Esprit that Lord Sudeley is believed to have found on the field of the Battle of Waterloo.