Yorkshire, land of broad acres, is a handsome county. Prior to 1974, when new boundaries were introduced, Yorkshire was by far the largest county in England. Split into three Ridings - North, West and East - derived from the Viking word "thrithing", meaning third part, Yorkshire boasted over 3.75 million acres and laid claim to a recognizable identity dating back to Anglo-Saxon times. It has been said that:
"The Yorkshireman has many of the qualities of the moors on which, or on whose edges he dwells. He is often harsh, gnarled, prickly; tenacious of his rights and only roughly picturesque…" (W. Riley, 1920)Hardly surprising therefore, that tinkering with boundaries has barely affected the connotations of being Yorkshire "born and bred ". Fierce pride in Yorkshire heritage chimes well with the current upsurge of interest in both history and genealogy. Increasingly, the relevance of the past to the present is embraced as people research sources such as Burke's Peerage & Gentry for information. Impressions of historical people and incidents often come alive most vividly during visits to historical buildings and Yorkshire is blessed with some outstanding examples, as we shall see… Set in the Howardian hills to the north-east of York is Castle Howard. Perhaps most famous in today's collective imagination as the location for the television version of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, it dates from 1699 when Charles, 3rd Earl of Carlisle, an ancestor of the present custodians, embarked on an ambitious plan to replace its predecessor, Henderskelfe Castle. The 3rd Earl, twice First Lord of the Treasury, asked architect William Talman, second only to Sir Christopher Wren in reputation, to draw up plans, but Talman was not an easy person and the two quarrelled. Suprisingly, the Earl turned to a fellow member of the Kit Kat Club (a political and literary club), Sir John Vanbrugh, a 35-year old dramatist with no previous architectural experience. It was to prove a visionary choice. Vanbrugh recruited Nicholas Hawksmoor, Wren's clerk, to assist him and in 1700 the great adventure to build Castle Howard (spanning one hundred years) began. Following his success in Yorkshire, Vanbrugh designed Blenheim Palace for John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough. Castle Howard, a baroque jewel, comprises a central section surmounted by a spectacular masonry dome (rebuilt 1960-62) and flanked by asymmetrical wings (the west wing is Palladian built, in 1753-99 to a design by Sir Thomas Robinson). It bears Corinthian pilasters on what has been described as the "eminently festive" south façade and Doric on the more forceful north. The interior includes an immense Great Hall with a gigantic decorated fireplace. The Chapel windows were designed by Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris. There are paintings by Canaletto, Marco Ricci, Hans Holbein, Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough. This is a veritable treasure house. |
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Travelling east to the Yorkshire Wolds and back in time by one hundred years, we find Burton Agnes Hall. This Elizabethan mansion (c1601-1610) was built for Sir Henry Griffith by Robert Smithson, a Master Mason to Queen Elizabeth I, and passed down to the Boynton family in 1654. On the death of Sir Marcus Wickham-Boynton in 1989, the house was inherited by Simon Cunliffe-Lister (aged 12) and managed on his behalf by his mother, Susan, the daughter of Viscount William Whitelaw.
Legend has it that, during its construction, one of Sir Henry's daughters, Anne, was attacked by robbers and subsequently died. As she lay dying she told her sisters she would be unable to rest unless they promised to preserve some part of her in the beautiful new hall. Anne was initially buried in the churchyard, but ghostly noises began to disturb her family so they decided to comply with her wishes and incorporated her skull into the fabric of the house, probably in the wall of the Great Hall. As long as it remains undisturbed, the house remains peaceful! The house, built of warm brick, is beautifully symmetrical and the interior includes: a truly magnificent hall with unsurpassed Elizabethan plasterwork, carving and panelling; the Queen's state bedroom with a spectacular stucco ceiling; and a Chinese room with eighteenth-century lacquered panels. |
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Further south, in the coastal Holderness area, is Burton Constable Hall.
Records in Burke's Peerage & Gentry show that the Wyvill family of Constable Burton claims descent from Sir Humphrey de Wyvill, Kt, companion in arms to William the Conqueror. Sir Marmaduke Wyvill built the present mansion in around 1600 and was visited there by his Sovereign, Queen Elizabeth I.
A visitor's impression of a quintessentially English house is heightened by the Jacobean Revival style of the interior. Fittingly, the grounds were landscaped by Lancelot "Capability" Brown regarded as the father of the "natural" English style of landscape gardening. Apparently his nickname derived from his habit of saying, as he viewed the intended site of a garden, "I see great capability of improvement here". The collections include furniture by Thomas Chippendale. Born in 1718 in Otley, West Yorkshire, Chippendale, the son of a carpenter, moved his workshop to St. Martin's Lane, London in 1748, and his book The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director was used extensively by fellow craftsmen in England and North America. Turning westward, we arrive at Nostell Priory, near Wakefield. As the name implies, Nostell was built on the site of an Augustinian priory (c.1100). It remains the home of descendants of the family who built it, although under the aegis of the National Trust. In 1733 when Sir Rowland Winn, 4th baronet began the house, he made the inspired decision to appoint James Paine as his architect. Paine was only 17 years old at the time, at the threshold of what was to be a long and illustrious career. Fifty years later Sir Rowland Winn, 5th baronet, employed Robert Adam, perhaps Scotland's most famous architect, to complete the house. The result is a unique blend of styles: a conflation of Paine's rococo vision and Adam's classical approach. Adam's work is especially well displayed in the upper entrance hall and the library. The art collection includes a portrait of Sir Thomas More's family, believed to be by Holbein, which is particularly interesting because of its family connection - Thomas More's daughter was an ancestor of Susanna Henshaw, wife of the 4th baronet. There are also pictures by Pieter Breughel the Younger and Angelica Kauffman and furniture by Thomas Chippendale. This magnificent mansion has a new role in the 2002 television adaptation of John Galsworthy's Forsyte Saga. A little way north, between Leeds and Harrogate, is another gem: Harewood House, seat of the Earls of Harewood. The family can trace its lineage back to John de Lascelles in 1315 and the entry in Burke's Peerage & Gentry makes fascinating reading. The mother of the present Earl was HRH Princess Mary, The Princess Royal. In 1748 Edwin Lascelles aspired to build a mansion to reflect his increasing importance in society and he employed John Carr, a well-established architect. Whilst Carr was completing work on the stables, Edwin Lascelles also consulted Robert Adam and together they created a Palladian mansion. Adam's hand is unmistakably at work in the exquisite interiors. In the mid-nineteenth century Sir Charles Barry, architect of the Houses of Parliament, designed substantial extensions and alterations, including an additional storey and the terrace garden. Harewood contains a vast collection of documented work by Thomas Chippendale, a nationally important collection of watercolours by J. M. W. Turner and paintings by El Greco, Bellini, Joshua Reynolds and Picasso. Set within grounds designed by "Capability" Brown, Harewood House undoubtedly achieved all that Edwin Lascelles intended. |
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A little earlier, around 1700-10, and a little to the east, Robert Benson, 1st Lord Bingley, Chancellor of the Exchequer and a favourite of Queen Anne, decided to build a summer home to entertain his friends, for whom the gardens must have been a special joy. Bramham Park remains the home of his descendents, the Lane Fox family, who host the Bramham National Three Day Event horse trials in the grounds.
The gardens of this eighteenth-century house are among the finest in the Versailles style in England. On a par with Hampton Court, they are laid out in straight avenues between high clipped hedges and characterized by long, straight vistas dotted with eye-catching features such as a temple, an obelisk or just a vase on a pedestal. The historic houses described are just a sample of what Yorkshire has to offer. The county is liberally sprinkled with fascinating buildings, like so many petals of its famous white rose. The fifteenth-century gatehouse of Ripley Castle, near Ripon, springs to mind. This gatehouse to the home of the Sir Thomas Colvin William Ingilby's family for over 600 years bears marks left by musket balls fired during the Civil War (1642-52). The staunchly royalist family had reluctantly acceded to Oliver Cromwell's demand for shelter on the night following the battle at Marston Moor, near York and he repaid them by executing royalist prisoners the following day. Nearby Norton Conyers Hall, occupied by the family of Sir James Bellingham Graham for 377 years, is said to be the model for "Thornfield Hall" in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. Close to York, Nunnington Hall was the childhood home of the mother of Catherine Parr, the sixth wife of Henry VIII who outlived her husband and subsequently married Sir Thomas Seymour! Sledmere House, more deeply tucked into the Wolds, is the home of Sir Tatton Sykes, a descendant of Sir Christopher Sykes, the great agricultural reformer. Yorkshire is a county redolent with history. Happily, it is a history these grand old houses can help us to share. |
More information is available on the following websites:
Reprinted with permission from www.burkes-peerage.net |
