Storming of Shelford House

Storming of Shelford House
	Part of the English Civil War
Date	1–3 November 1645
Location	Shelford House, Newark52°59′03″N 1°00′00″W / 52.9841°N 1.0000°W
Result	Parliamentarian victory; Shelford House destroyed;
Belligerents
Royalists	Parliamentarians
Commanders and leaders
Sir Philip Stanhope (DOW); Lawrence Clifton †	Sydnam Poyntz; John Hutchinson; Edward Rossiter
Strength
150 cavalry; 50 infantry	4,000 cavalry; 5,000 infantry
Casualties and losses
160 men killed; ~ 40 men captured	60 men killed
	class=notpageimage\| Location within Nottinghamshire

The Storming of Shelford House was a confrontation of the English Civil War that took place from 1 to 3 November 1645. The Parliamentarian force of Colonel-General Sydnam Poyntz attacked the Royalist outpost of Shelford House, which was one of a group of strongholds defending the strategically important town of Newark-on-Trent. The house, owned by Philip Stanhope, 1st Earl of Chesterfield and controlled by his son Sir Philip Stanhope, and made up of mostly Catholic soldiers, was overwhelmed by the Parliamentarian force after calls for submission were turned down by Stanhope. The majority of the defenders were killed in the resulting sack by the Parliamentarians, commanded by Colonel John Hutchinson, and the house was then burned to the ground. Stanhope died soon afterwards from injuries he sustained in the attack.

Poyntz used his momentum from Shelford to then take Wiverton Hall, another of the Newark strongholds, the following day and also began to invest Belvoir Castle. By the end of the month he had joined with the Scottish army of General Alexander Leslie, 1st Earl of Leven and besieged Newark, which surrendered on 8 May of the following year. With the Royalist garrison having lost 80 per cent of its men killed, mostly the Catholics, the storming of Shelford House was a highly violent affair; because of this the Parliamentarians declined to use it for propaganda. Equally, the Royalists failed to publicise the actions of Poyntz's army because they did not wish to show support for the Catholics who had died. The battle has been compared in scale to similar events at Bolton in 1644 and Leicester in 1645.