Yorkshire Stately Homes

• Dramatic Georgian mansion with one of Britain's finest baroque interiors
• In partnership with National Portrait Gallery, Beningbrough has over 100 famous paintings and seven interpretation galleries with hands-on actvities
• Fantastic Wilderness play area, with new fort
• Functioning walled garden which supplies produce to the restaurant
• Many events, activity days and evening concerts. Special restaurant evenings, such as 'Starters and Desserters' clubs

The official house of the Archbishop of York.

The Palace is built of magnesian limestone, almost certainly from Thevesdale near Tadcaster. It has masons' marks common to York Minster south transept and was finished around 1250.

Archbishop Thoresby extended his private rooms in 1364-5 and in 1483 Archbishop Rotherham added a range to the north built of red brick decorated with diaper in vitrified brick which doubled the size of the residential quarters and improved the kitchens.

Bolling Hall offers visitors a fascinating journey through the lives and times of the Bradford families for whom it provided a home over five hundred years.
Bolling Hall was for many years the seat of two important land-owning families, the Bollings and the Tempests.
With parts of the building dating from the Medieval, Bolling Hall is a rambling mixture of styles with every nook and cranny packed with history. During the Civil War the household supported the Royalist cause, and the house provided a stronghold during the 'siege of Bradford'.
Rooms are furnished and decorated to give an accurate taste of life at different periods of the house's history, and the fascinating furniture on display includes a superb bed made for Harewood House by Thomas Chippendale.

This splendid Queen Anne mansion was built in 1698, and its famous gardens laid out over the following thirty years by Robert Benson, First Lord Bingley. 300 years later, his family still own and live at Bramham Park, and welcome visitors as guests to their home.

See the fine collections of furniture, porcelain and paintings in the House, and stroll in the peaceful tranquility of 66 acres of formal gardens, unique in the British Isles. View magnificent displays of flowers in Spring and Summer, with ornamental ponds, cascades, tall beech hedges and loggias of various shapes.

Explore the changing fortunes of a wealthy Victorian family in this once opulent Yorkshire country home.

Discover 150 years of family life documented at Brodsworth Hall: from silk and chandeliers, to the austerities of life during WWII. Take a walk around the labyrinthine ‘grand gardens in miniature’, now restored to their Victorian heyday. Follow an investigative trail for all ages in the Work & Play exhibition, dramatising the lives of Brodsworth’s family, servants and tenants.
There’s also plenty to explore in the enchanting garden, from the classical summerhouse to the Rose Dell with hundreds of rose varieties.

If first impressions hold any credence at all, sight of the magnificent gatehouse at Burton Agnes Hall does not fail to fulfil the expectations of splendour that await the unsuspecting visitor. This is a grand Elizabethan house, full of treasures both old and modern, legends and stories wrapped in its walls, gardens full of interest and surprises, and a history going back to Norman times.

In 1601-1610, it was one of the last major houses built by the celebrated Elizabethan architect, Sir Robert Smythson. Symmetrical in red brick with stone dressings.

Situated on the north east coast of Yorkshire, some six miles inland of Bridlington, the bracing climate at Burton Agnes Hall has been cleverly tamed within spectacular walled gardens. Along with the herbaceous borders, the scented garden and the jungle garden, all ages will delight in the giant outdoor board games to be found sheltering between the plants.

"Castle Howard is one of Britain's finest historic houses and is still home to my family whose forebears conceived, designed, and built it over three centuries ago.

The construction of Castle Howard took more than 100 years before it could be said to have been finally completed, and spanned the lifetime of three earls and numerous architects and craftsmen. As the house was built and decorated so the grounds were filled with lakes, temples, monuments and a grand mausoleum. A thriving estate grew up encompassing several villages and acres of farmland.

The Cholmley family acquired Whitby Abbey and its land after the dissolution of the monasteries in 1539 and lived in the abbey`s lodgings and the gatehouse until they built the Banqueting House. Costing the princely sum of £232,000, money for the development came from a fortune amassed from the local alum industry and Sir Hugh Cholmley`s involvement in building a fortified harbour wall in the English colony of Tangiers. During the 18th Century the Banqueting House fell into decay after the loss of its roof to a storm in the year 1790. The decay was arrested after the property and other abbey buildings came into the possession of the Strickland family, whose descendants still own the house today. They secured walls by fitting bracing arches in 1866, replaced when the property and abbey ruins were handed to the Ministry of Works in 1936.

Cusworth Hall is a fine example of an 18th century house set in a fine parkland. It has an excellent view across to Doncaster. The there is fishing lake at the bottom of the hill. Cusworth Hall is a popular venue for special events such as egg rolling at Easter time and musical events at Christmas. It was lived in by the Battie-Wrightson family for many years, and there is a display about the family. The museum is also known as 'The Museum of South Yorkshire Life'. The rooms contain varied displays such as trains and transport, Women at Work, Toys and Children's Games, Coal Mining, Farming and Agriculture, Clothes and Costumes, Wheelwrights and Blacksmiths, Entertainment, Photography, and Electronic Recording. In the past there has been a period bathroom and a beehive.

Dobroyd Castle in Todmorden was built by mill owner John Fielden as a honeymoon home for his mill girl wife, Ruth.
The objective was to create a building which would 'immortalise the name of Fielden' and which would be 'the most commanding object in the neighbourhood'.

In 1995, Dobroyd Castle was bought by monks from the New Kadampa Buddhist Tradition for £320,000. The Losang Dragpa Centre, as the Castle is now called, offers meditation courses, weekend retreats and holds an annual open day.

This summer, Buddhists at the centre were seeking sponsorship from local businesses to raise funds for the restoration of the Castle. Repairs to the glass ceiling and roof are required and the monks wish to convert a stable block, develop the garden, and carry out restoration of the Castle's interior.

Doncaster's elegant Mansion House, a focus for civic pride, has dominated the High Street for over two hundred and fifty years. It is one of only four surviving civic Mansion Houses in the country.

The first was built by the corporation of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1691, but was demolished in the redevelopment of the town centre in the mid-nineteenth century. York began its own mansion house in 1725, followed by London in 1739 and finally by Bristol in 1783. 

The Bristol mansion house was built sloley as a home for the mayor, and the mansion houses of London and York provided accommodation for the mayor as one of their functions.

Doncaster Mansion House, however, was designed as a place for corporate entertaining and, although there were several rooms to provide living accommodation, the house was never intended as a residence for the mayor in his year of office, although a few mayors made use of the rooms for this purpose.

The Folly was built in about 1679 by Richard Preston, a wealthy merchant. His new house, originally named Tanner Hall, formed the centre piece of his estate in Settle. It stands by the original main road into the town and was undoubtedly built to make an impact.
Richard Preston died in 1695/6 and the house passed to his daughter Margaret. She soon sold it to another wealthy local family, the Dawsons, in whose hands it remained until 1980.
From 1708, the Dawsons leased The Folly for a range of uses - at various times it has housed a bakery, a warehouse, a furniture shop, refreshment rooms, a fish-and-chip shop and a salvage business. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it was also used from time to time for public and society meetings.

Fountains Hall was built by Stephen Proctor between 1598 and 1604, partly with stone from the Abbey ruins. It was built for peace and prosperity, not defence, and has been attributed to the influence of the Elizabethan architect Robert Smythson. After Proctor's death in 1619, the Hall eventually came into the hands of the Messenger family.

Once sold to William Aislabie 150 years later, the Hall became virtually redundant since the entire estate of Fountains and Studley was administered from Studley Royal House. The Hall was leased to various tenants and at one time parts of it were used for farm storage.

It was not until 1928-31 that the Hall was extensively repaired with many internal additions. The Duke and Duchess of York (later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth) often stayed there as guests of the Vyner family.

During the Second World War, the Hall and other estate buildings were used to house evacuees, including pupils of Queen Ethelburga's School near York.

Harewood House, home to the Queen's cousin, the Earl of Harewood, provides a wonderful day out for all the family.

The House, with its outstanding art collections, splendid State Rooms and fascinating 'Below Stairs' exhibition, is set in spectacular grounds, which include formal gardens and gentle woodland walks. A visit to Harewood offers the opportunity to marvel at the collections in the House, explore the Gardens and Bird Garden, take a boat trip across the lake, (subject to availability), while youngsters can enjoy the challenge and excitement of the Adventure Playground!

The Worsley's bought the Manor of Hovingham in 1563. They were an old Lancashire family; legend says they were descended from Elias, a giant who died fighting on the Crusades. Worsley, the town from which they took their name is now a suburb of Manchester.

It was Thomas Worsley who designed and built Hovingham Hall. He was obsessed with horses and architecture and the house remains the product of the extraordinary fusion of these two obsessions. Thomas Worsley became a close friend of King George III and is reputed to have taught him to ride. It was this friendship and Thomas’s enthusiasm for architecture that meant when George III became King in 1760 he was appointed Surveyor General to the Board of Works.

Originally the Abbot's House of St Mary's Abbey, the King's Manor served the Tudors and Stuarts as a seat of government, becoming a school and residences in the 18th century. The history of the King's Manor weaves a continuous thread in the history of York since medieval times. Following the Dissolution of the monasteries, the Manor was retained by the Crown and allocated to the Council of the North. It became the official residence of the President of the Council in 1561 and was gradually enlarged and extended westwards. Much of the building work was done during the reign of Elizabeth I.

Oakwell Hall is a late-16th century manor house set in a tranquil rural oasis in the heart of the West Riding conurbation.

Oakwell Hall was built by John Batt in 1583 and is now furnished as the Batt family home in the 1690s. Thanks to only minor alterations over the years and a fine collection of period furniture, the Hall offers visitors a real insight into a post English Civil War household.
Oakwell was immortalised by Charlotte Bronte in her novel 'Shirley'. With its historical connections, wide open spaces, wooded areas, ponds, streams, walks and abundant wildlife, is truly a countryside oasis in what is predominantly an industrial area.