Longford Hall seen from the tower roof of St Chad's. The Hall is partly Elizabethan and was one of the seats of the Earls of Leicester including the famous 1st Earl, Thomas William Coke who was a great agricultural reformer of the 19th century. Amongst the innovations introduced in Longford was the building in 1870 of the first purpose-built cheese factory anywhere in England. It was built by Dutch-American Cornelius Schemerhorn.