Hildenley Hall

Hildenley Hall was an Elizabethan mansion 2 miles (3.2 km) southwest of Malton, North Yorkshire, England, on the north bank of the Derwent.[1] Hildenley stone, considered to be the best decorative stone in Yorkshire, takes its name from the site.[2]

The area is referred to in Domesday Book as Hildingeslei and was also referred to as Hieldenley.[3] There was a holy well at the site, which was named in honour of St. Hilda.[4]

In 1565, the estate and its quarries were purchased by the navigator William Strickland, grandfather of Sir William Strickland, 1st Baronet, and the Elizabethan house likely built in the 17th or 18th century. [5] It was built from the fine-grained peloidal limestone found on the estate that became known as Hildenley limestone.[6] It is of extremely high quality, particularly suited for interior carving, and was used at Kirkham Priory, Malton Priory and the chapel at Castle Howard.[7]

George Strickland, of Hildenley, represented the county of Yorkshire in the British Parliament in the 19th century.[8] The estate was 270 acres in the mid-19th century.[1]

The eighth baronet was a keen botanist and built a large conservatory and other structures for nature. After his death on 31 December 1909, Hildenley Hall was described thus by the Linnean Society: "The Hall, although not a very large building, is a comfortable residence, built in a well sheltered site at the base of a steep wooded bank of limestone formation known as Hildenley Wood, which is a relic of the ancient forest-land of Yorkshire and has never been under cultivation, and is the home of some of the rarest of our British native orchids and other rare kinds of the wild flora of Britain."[9]

Sir Walter Strickland, 9th Baronet, known as the "Anarchist Baronet" for his anti-imperialist ideas, sold the estate after his father's death in 1909.[10] It was bought by the Hon. Francis Dawnay (11 December 1853 – 26 June 1914), son of William Dawnay, 7th Viscount Downe, and demolished soon afterwards, another house replacing it.[11]

References
  1. Whellan, T. (1859). History and Topography of the City of York. pp. 850–851. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
  2. "Hildenley Limestone Quarries". Historic England. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
  3. Ekwall, Eilert (1960). The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place Names.
  4. Walford, Edward; Apperson, George Latimer (1891). "Holy Wells: Their Legends and Superstitions". The Antiquary: A Magazine Devoted to the Study of the Past. E. Stock. 23: 81. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
  5. "Strickland-Constable family, of Wassand". Landed Family and Estate Papers Subject Guide. University of Hull. Archived from the original on 22 March 2005. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
  6. "BGS Lexicon of Named Rock Units". British Geological Survey. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
  7. Howe, John Allen (2016). Geology of Building Stones. Routledge. p. 228. ISBN 9781317742180. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
  8. London Gazette: MPs for 1831
  9. "Obituary notices". Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London. Linnean Society of London: 101. 1910.
  10. "Sir Walter Strickland". The Times. The Times Digital Archive. 12 August 1938. p. 14.
  11. Waterson, Edward; Meadows, Peter (1990). Lost Houses of York and the North Riding. Jill Raines. p. 12. ISBN 9780951649404. Retrieved 2 April 2018.


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.