Ilam Hall

About trip

Ilam hall has been here since John Port had the first one built in 1546. Both William Congreve and Dr Samuel Johnson stayed at the hall when it was owned by the Port family. Congreve wrote his first play, The Old Bachelor here and Paradise valley inspired Johnson to write his novel Rasselas. In 1820 the estate was bought by Jesse Watts-Russell, a wealthy industrialist. It was Watts-Russell who was responsible for the Swiss look of Ilam; he found that the valley and surrounding hills reminded him of the Alps, and consequently had some new cottages built in the Swiss style and rehoused most of the villagers