Eastwell Park at Ashford. Demolished in 1926 and rebuilt as Eastwell Manor. (Lost Heritage)
The main house at Eastwell Park was built in Neo-Elizabethan style between 1793 and 1799 for George Finch-Hatton, 9th Earl of Winchilsea, and remodelled in 1843 by William Burn. In the mid-1860s the 11th Earl suffered financial difficulties forcing him to leave and the estate was let to the Duke of Abercorn for 5 years. (Winchilsea was declared bankrupt in 1870). The house was then tenanted by Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, the second son of Queen Victoria. Eastwell Park was bought by the 2nd Lord Gerard in 1894 and it passed to his son in 1902. Frederic John Gerard had gained the rank of Captain in the Lancashire Hussars Imperial Yeomanry and achieved a similar rank with the Royal Horse Guards. He also held the office of Justice of the Peace and Deputy Lieutenant for the County of Lancashire.
Frederic J Gerard, 3rd Baron Gerard (1883-1953). (The British Newspaper Archive)
A forgotten mansion. Eastwell Park was too big and was torn down in 1926. (Lost Heritage)
In 1920 Eastwell Park was put up for sale and the eventual buyer was Mr Osborn Dan who never lived here but chose to remain in his house at Wateringbury. He sold the estate in 1924 and it was reported that the new owner intended to reduce the size of the mansion. This was Sir John de Fonblanqua Pennefather (1856-1933), a British cotton merchant and Conservative politician, who’d just been created a Baronet, of Golden in the County of Tipperary. Some experts suggest he was more interested in architecture rather than the estate. He demolished the existing mansion and in 1926, using much of the old materials, rebuilt the house as it now stands, but significantly reducing its size. He was overtaken by blindness and never lived in the new house. In 1930, Madeline Cecilia Carlyle Brodrick, 2nd wife of the 1st Earl of Midleton, later Countess Midleton, bought the estate but lived in London. Her son, Captain George Brodrick, managed the estate on modern and efficient lines. The 1920s house survives as Eastwell Manor, a Champneys Spa Hotel. All that remains of the old house is Eastwell Towers, built in 1848, the original gatehouse.
Eastwell Manor. The house was built between 1926-28 by B.C. Deacon for Sir John Pennefather.All that remains of the Georgian house. Eastwell Towers, built in 1848 as the original gatehouse.
Sandbeck Park. James Paine’s Palladian front was very unusual for the period. (Roger Perris)
Built: c.1765-1768 Architect: James Paine Owner: Earl of Scarbrough Country House Grade I listed
“Dickon Scarbrough was much appreciated in the Sandbeck neighbourhood, and miners from the nearby Maltby pit were happy to act as beaters at his pheasant shoots. During the miners’ strike of 1984 there was a sudden lull during a drive, explained when a beater emerged from behind a bush. ‘Sorry, my lord,’ he said, ‘but we’ll have to scarper. There’s some snoopers from the DHSS over there in a van.'” (Obituary for the 12th Earl of Scarbrough, The Telegraph, 17 April 2004)
The former mining town of Maltby might not be the obvious place for a grand old country house. Many locals consider it down-at-heel yet, not far from its centre, is Sandbeck Park, the family seat of the Earl of Scarbrough since the 18th century, and to whom many residents of this small South Yorkshire town still pay their ground rent to.
Today Sandbeck Park is relatively unknown but it has seen its fair share of noble visitors. It’s close location to Doncaster Racecourse firmly placed the house into the diaries of landed gentry as well as Kings and Queens, including our present one. If all this is forgotten then Maltby’s inhabitants delight in speculation that former model, actress and author Joanna Lumley might somehow be related to the present occupants of the house!
This Grade I listed house dates to the 17th century with extensive remodelling in the 18th and 19th centuries. It lies close to the ruins of the better-known Roche Abbey, founded in 1147 by Cistercian monks.
The 1st recorded house at Sandbeck was built-in 1626 for Sir Nicholas Saunderson, 1st Viscount Castleton. Sandbeck passed to Thomas Lumley later 3rd Earl of Scarbrough who died in 1752.
Sandbeck remained in the hands of the Castletons until 1723, when the sixth viscount, who was granted an earldom in 1720, died without an heir. He willed Sandbeck to his cousin, Thomas Lumley, the 3rd Earl of Scarbrough.
“Perhaps no great house in Yorkshire is more out-of-the-way than the Earl of Scarbrough’s seat. Nothing can be seen of it until several sylvan labyrinths and luxuriant groves have been threaded.”
In 1760 the fourth earl hired Neoclassical architect James Paine to considerably rebuild and extend the 17th century house in the fashionable Palladian style. Paine had a favourable reputation in Yorkshire including his work at Nostell Priory, Hickleton Hall, Cusworth Hall and the Mansion House in Doncaster. He was also responsible for the huge stable block at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire.
Between 1763 and 1768 he enlarged the main building with a new Grecian front and added several outbuildings, including gatehouses and the limestone stables. Paine allegedly used stones from Roche Abbey during the construction of the house.
Early architectural drawing of the east front created by James Paine between 1763 and 1768.
If the Dissolution of the Monasteries and the later handiwork of James Paine hadn’t robbed Roche Abbey of its contents then much worse was to come.
In 1774, the fourth earl commissioned Capability Brown to completely landscape the area, signing a contract to pay him £2,800 for work to last through 1777. It appears that Brown had little regard for the historical value of the abbey and systematically destroyed much of it to satisfy contemporary tastes. When finished the abbey was little more than a romantic folly.
‘Brown engineered a lake and islands over Roche’s southern buildings, substituted a river for the medieval water channels, contrived a waterfall to cascade from the Laughton Pond, and composed irregular tree groupings in surrounding fields. He also levelled the ruins’ irregular walls to provide a uniform grassed foreground for a banqueting lodge’.
The park was landscaped by Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown between 1774-77 with Thomas White, Adam Mickle senior and Adam Mickle junior. Roche Abbey was partly dismantled and its grounds landscaped to create a ‘contemporary’ vista.
In 1857, the 9th Earl of Scarbrough turned to the Scottish architect William Burn to further remodel and improve the house. This resulted in significant internal alterations and in 1869 Benjamin Ferrey, an ecclesiastical architect and pupil of Augustus Charles Pugin, built a private chapel for the earl. A 19th-century service wing that linked the house to Sandbeck Chapel was demolished in 1954.
A garden fete and bazaar in aid of the new mission church at Maltby. The photograph on the left is of Sandbeck Hall, while on the right are members of the house party, including (in addition to the Earl of Scarbrough and the Countess of Scarbrough) the Countess Grosvenor, the Countess of Bradford, the Marchioness of Zetland, Colonel the Hon. O. Lumley and the Hon. Mrs Lumley, Lady Serena Lumley, and Miss Ashton. From the Sheffield Daily Telegraph, August 3rd, 1911. (British Newspaper Archive)
There might have been a steady decline in its social status, not helped by its close proximity to Maltby Colliery, one of Britain’s largest deep coal mines that closed in 2013. Sandbeck Park is now the home of Richard Osbert Lumley, 13th Earl of Scarbrough (b.1973). They still own the former family seat at Lumley Castle which now functions as a hotel. The 13th Earl has continued the good work started by his father (who was a godson of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and of the 1st Earl of Halifax) by helping charities, with the Dinnington-based Safe@Last being one of his top priorities. He is a patron of the charity which provides refuge and help for runaway youngsters or those in danger at home.
Modern view of Sandbeck Park with the Chapel once connected by a 19th century service wing.
HOUSE AND HERITAGE 