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Home , Embrasure, Great hall, Solar (room), Undercroft

CSG Annual Conference - April 2017 - Markenfield

Markenfield Hall. First- hall (left - ground level entrance). The north lodging, chapel and south lodging are to the east (right). Additional lodgings, running south along the east range originally had exterior to the first-floor apartments. Far left: Early 15th century is adjacent to and west of the . Markenfield Hall ‘walk-ways, arrow-loop embrasures, and bat- tlements above, emphasise that when the The small settlement of Markenfield sits in present was constructed c. 1310, (incor- fields three miles south of Ripon, looking much porating parts of an earli r 1230s house) it was as it did when built in the early fourteenth built with defense in mind - as it had to be: the century. It is mostly medieval and has been country was on the brink of civil war between beautifully restored. the barons and the ineffective Edward II, and The builder was John de Markenfield (d. before John de Markenfield was part of the royal 1323) one-time Chancellor to the hapless Ed- household and marked out as a hated king’s ward II. It received a licence to crenellate in man. 1310, but it is felt that much rebuilding was in The house is now formed around a rectangular process before that date. The hall now wears circumscribed by the . The any obvious defences lightly, but needed some Great Hall is straight ahead (above), on the level of defensive cover to protect him from his first floor, with the and lodging apart- (or the king’s) local enemies; it might properly ments to the east forming a compact L-shaped be called a ‘lightly fortified ’. block. The elegant spiral staircase is distin- The handsome guidebook, which reproduces guished by its distinctive steeple-like cap. the original enrolment of the licence, (p.7) sug- Markenfield is a rare treasure in the hands of gests that the had a over dedicated custodians. It is the most complete the moat until the eighteenth century; there was surviving example of a medium sized four- also an outer moat. The present remains of teenth-century country house in .

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Plan (from the guidebook) of how the medieval vaulting of the present house may have been arranged before before consid- erably dismantled in about 1570. The site of the original Great Hall (or chamber block) and its of the earlier 1230s house is marked in red. The plan is based on the measured survey by John Miller during the 1981-84 restoration.

The 1230s house The late Professor Andor Gomme worked over several years to establish precisely where the ‘second’ Markenfield Hall was built and how much of it had been incorporated into the third (c. 1310) Markenfield that exists today.

He concluded that the second Markenfield was built c. 1230. Its undercroft consisted of the three surviving vaulted or semi- vaulted ground floor on the east side of the house and its Great Hall above was what is now part of the Chapel, the four poster and the two rooms beyond. It was consid- erably smaller than the Markenfield that survives today but many differences in style and proportion mark it out as early thirteenth century work.

Andor Gomme’s posthumous summary analysis is presented in The Medieval ’, 2011, pp. 109-124, but on his own admission, ‘There is doubtless still much to be learnt about Markenfield: this account therefore is offered as a stag- ing post during work in progress’.

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Floor plans by Priestly Shires. North to the right. From: ‘The Old and Manor of Yorkshire’ by Louis Ambler. 1913

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Markenfield Hall. By William Twopenny, c. 1830s. View from the SW. British Museum ref: AN00142931_001_l. © Trustees of the British Museum. Note the gable-end of the terminating the west range - since removed to accommodate a and flue (below). BELOW: A similar viewpoint today.

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ABOVE: The Tudor gatehouse which may have replaced an earlier gatehouse on the same footprint. It contains a dovecot in the ground-floor west chamber (left). BELOW: The exterior of the west range (to the left of the gatehouse, looking south) - stables, brewhouses and services.

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Markenfield. The east façade with the large chapel . A narrow lancet window on the extreme right (north) possibly dates from the earlier hall/solar block (1230s) and remained incorporated into the new 1310 house (window altered later). BELOW: The NE corner with the lean-to latrine block, Great Hall to the right with its flue and stack (the latter probably inserted post 1310).

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Markenfield - Great Hall and kitchen block from the north. A façade with many puzzles. Between the LH garderobe block and the chimney is a blocked doorway, half built into the 14th century window above it. What was its purpose? And why does the similar window to the right have an oblique roofline cutting right across it?

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Markenfield - Great Hall and kitchen block from the north, by William Twopenny. c. 1830s. On this side, the upper part of the -top is missing, and without any arrow loops or crenels. Was it always thus? The chimney stack is also missing, but there is one at the gable end..

BELOW: The wide segmental arched fireplace in the Great Hall, flush with the - a copy of the one that is now in the undercroft below (right) which was removed from the hall when the building became a farmhouse. Suggested date of the fireplace is the 1340s (guidebook p. 24), an early innovation that was moving away from the tall pyramidal projecting hooded fireplace.

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Markenfield Hall. Great Hall and east lodging block. From ‘Some Account of Domestic Architec- ture in England’, Vol. II, J. H. Parker 1853, opp. p. 230. Artist: William Twopenny. BELOW: A similar view today. Notice the change to the ground-floor entrance into the Great Hall undercroft, and the insertion of the long narrow late-Victorian window, replacing a square frame.

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Markenfield Hall. The ‘Utility ’ under the ‘Solar’ at the north end of Undercroft ‘B’. This appears to be the earliest remaining set of two-bay quadripartite vaults (1230s), and was supported by a central row of or piers, similar to the cellarium at Fountains Abbey (see over and p. 127). Image reproduced courtesy of Markenfieldhall.com.

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Markenfield - under the Solar. View of the semi-octagonal corbel capital in the . ( on Priestly Shire’s plan), in the northern part of space ‘B’.

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Markenfield Hall - The quadripartite vaulting under the Solar. The Utility room. (Larder on Priestly Shire’s plan), in space ‘B’. BELOW left: One of the (two remaining?) freestanding central piers now virtually encased within a dividing partition wall. Below right: The cellarium at Fountains Abbey (mid-late C12), not far from Markenfield, similar to Markenfield, but the ribs are taken down to the ground.

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ABOVE: Left: Art nouveau window in the Great Hall c. 1900. Right: Twin-light c. 1300-1310 hall window with trefoil-headed lights and quatrefoils - facing the courtyard. BELOW: 1,2 The Great Hall looking west to the C15 kitchen range through the in the gable end, 2, looking NE. Blocked late C13?/C14 window embrasure with tracery above. 3. Chapel with east window. 4. The vaulted .

1 2

4 3

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The elegant east 14th century lodging block with semi-octagonal steeple-capped staircase . View from the courtyard. Altered from two to three floors with reorganised fenestration in about 1550. Inset: Clockwise spiral staircase interiors - cut-slab risers and wide lights.

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Bibliography Wood, E. S., 1946, Ancient of Harrogate Gomme, Andor, 2011, ‘Markenfeld Hall, Illingworth, J. L., 1938 (republished 1970), Yorkshire’ in Airs, M. and Barnwell, P. S. Yorkshire’s Ruined (Wakefield), 140-1 (eds), The Medieval Great House (Donington: Shaun Tyas), 109-124 Tipping, H. A., 1921, English , period 1 Vol. 1 (), 125-32 Goodall, John, 2011, The English Castle 1066- 1650 (Yale University Press), 233, 235 Ambler, L., 1913, The old halls and manor houses of Yorkshire, with some examples of Curteis, Ian, n.d. c. 2010, Markenfield Hall other houses built before the year 1700 (Lon- (Windsor: Wilton) (official handbook) don: Batsford), 45 Senior, J. C., 2009, The Markenfields of Marken- Sparrow, W. Shaw, 1908, The English House field Hall (Black Swan Books) How to judge its periods and styles (London: Gomme, Andor and Maguire, Alison, 2008, De- Eveleigh Nash), 134-8 sign and plan in the country house: from castle Mackenzie, J. D., 1896, Castles of England; donjons to Palladian boxes (Yale University their story and structure (New : Mac- Press), 92-4 millan) Vol. 2, 235-6 Salter, Mike, 2001, The Castles and Tower Turner, T. H. and Parker, J. H., 1859, Some Houses of Yorkshire (Malvern: Folly Publica- account of Domestic in England tions), 59 (Oxford) Vol. 3 Part 2, 406 Emery, Anthony, 1996, Greater Medieval Turner, T. H. and Parker, J. H., 1853, Some Houses of England and Wales Vol. 1 Northern account of Domestic Architecture in England England (Cambridge: Cambridge University (Oxford) Vol. 2, 231-4 Press), 363-7 Periodical Articles Pettifer, A., 1995, English Castles, A guide by counties (Woodbridge: Boydell Press), 306 Goodall, J., 2008 June 18, ‘Markenfield Hall’ Country Life 25, 116-21 Sykes, C. S., 1988, Ancient English Houses 1240-1612 (London: Chatto & Windus) 2003, ‘Medieval Britain and Ireland in 2002’ Medieval Archaeology Vol. 47, 292 No. 246 King, D. J. C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol., 533 Miller, J. S., 1985, ‘Restoration Work at Markenfield Hall 1981-1984’ Yorkshire Ar- Ryder, P. F., 1982 (paperback edn 1992), The chaeological Journal Vol. 57, 101-110 Medieval Buildings of Yorkshire (Ash Grove Book), 108-22 Worsley, Giles, 1985 Sept 19, ‘Markenfield Hall North Yorkshire. The of Lord and Le Patourel, H. E. Jean, 1973, The Moated Sites Lady Grantley’ Country Life, 800-5 of Yorkshire (The Society for Medieval Archae- ology Monograph Series 5), 125 Harrington, C., 1953, The Dalesman Vol. 15.4 Pevsner, N., 1967, revised by Enid Radcliffe, Hussey, 1940, Dec 28, ‘Markenfield Hall, York- Buildings of England: Yorkshire: West Riding shire’ Country Life, 566-701 (London), 359-60 Tipping, H. A., 1912 Feb 10, ‘Markenfield Hall, Wood, Margaret, 1965, The English Mediaeval Yorkshire’ Country Life, 206-212 House (London: Bracken), 180 passim CD Rom Martin S. Briggs, 1953, The English farmhouse Aspects of Markenfield 6: A story Told in (The new heritage series), 29 Stone: the pre-1310 house., Pr. Andor Gomme, Malcolm Hand (Ed).

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