One of Doncaster’s most historic aristocratic houses is on track to become a ‘high-end wedding venue’ and hotel.

Plans have been submitted to Doncaster Council for Hickleton Hall – which was once the English country retreat of a Viceroy of India – to be changed into a wedding venue and hotel. Plans have been submitted on behalf of new owner Bob Camping, of Hickleton Hall Weddings, who hopes to start transforming the building in January if permission is given.

As part of his plans, the main body of the hall would be transformed in to a wedding venue and the hotel would consist of 26 guest rooms and a bridal suite.

Mr Camping said he is keen to preserve the historic integrity of Hickleton Hall. He said: “I want to turn it into a high-end wedding venue. It’s a really beautiful building and would be a wonderful place to get married.”

The Grade II listed Georgian house, built in the mid-18th century, has 64 bedrooms. Hickleton Hall, based in Sprotbrough just off the A635 road between Doncaster and Barnsley, was designed by architect James Paine for the Woolley family, who were forced to sell it because of a banking crash.

It was later owned by Lord Halifax, a former Viceroy of India and Foreign Secretary, in the lead-up to the Second World War. He sold it in 1947 when he moved to his other estate in North Yorkshire.

It then became a convent boarding school for girls before the Sue Ryder Trust bought it in 1961. It was run as a care facility until 2012. Sprotbrough ward councillor Cynthia Ransome said she welcomed the idea of Hickleton Hall being turned into a wedding venue.

She said: “I think if it’s restored sympathetically and in a way that does not change the character of the building, then it’s a good thing.

“Nobody likes to see a beautiful building like that go to rack and ruin, so it’s good something is hopefully being done with it.”