Grace and Nicholas Wolstenholme failed to produce an heir, so in 1729, Forty Hall passed to Nicholas’ young nieces, the Misses Elizabeth and Mary Wolstenholme. By the time Elizabeth married Eliab Breton in 1740, the Estate supported some 57 tenants and was said to worth in the region of £2800 pa.
The Bretons were the last owners of Forty Hall with family connections leading directly to Sir Nicholas Rainton. A letter written by Eliab in June 1770, describes an agreeable life spent fox hunting at his Northamptonshire Estate and sea bathing at the fashionable new seaside resort of Bright Helmston, (Brighton). It was the Breton family who created the lawn, shrubberies, ponds and walks that define Forty Hall today and were responsible for creating of the Ferme Ornee. This was a raised pathway leading around the Estate, which allowed Ladies and Gentlemen to appreciate the grounds without muddying their fashionable gowns.
When in 1759, the Governor of the Dutch East Indies Company visited Forty Hall he foundEliab’s eldest daughter to be educated in ‘Mathesis, Astro[nomy] and Physic Experimentalis and besides that so beautiful that I do not know with whom I can compare her’.Mary went on to marry the MP John Hope and produce ‘Three blooming boys, with cherub face’. A monument commemorating her short life can be found in Westminster Abbey.
Unfortunately, the Breton’s eldest son Michael appears to have enjoyed a somewhat profligate lifestyle and shortly after Eliab’s death, Elizabeth was forced to sell the entire estate at auction, ‘due to the misconduct of her offspring’. It is not clear precisely what her children did to make Eliza Breton sell Forty Hall, but the Auctioneers, describe the house as being a Spacious Mansion with extensive offices, an elegant greenhouse and a park of 400 acres.
The house failed to meet its reserve price , but in 1797 it was bought by an army agent named Captain Edmund Armstrong for £8800.