HOTHAM HALL, EAST

History and Architecture

Susan & David Neave December 2020 HOTHAM HALL

Hotham Hall lies south of the small village of Hotham, some 10 miles southwest of , and just within the parish of . The core of the building dates from the early 1720s, but the house was altered and extended in the later 18th century and again in the 1870s.

The manor of Hotham was in the hands of the Crown at the beginning of the 17th century, and was leased to tenants. Little is known of the manor house that existed at this date, but Manor Farm in Hotham may be on the site. In 1628 the manor and estate of Hotham passed to the City of as security for a loan made by them to the Crown, and in 1631 was sold by the Corporation of London to William Robinson, a London mercer. It then remained in the ownership of the Robinson family until 1719 when another William Robinson and his surviving sisters Rebecca and Susannah Robinson, to whom it had been left in trust, sold the manor and estate to William Burton of Beverley, gentleman.1 The price given in the agreement of sale dated November 1718 was £3425.2

William Burton I Born in Hull in 1690, William was descended from a family of yeomen from Cottingham. His grandfather Richard had moved to Arram in Atwick parish to farm there in the 1650s. His father, born at Arram, had moved to Hull by the time William Burton was born. The family later moved to Beverley, and William was living in the parish of St John (Beverley Minster) when he married Catherine Moyser at St Mary’s church, Beverley on 23 November 1721. She was the daughter of John Moyser of Beverley and his second wife, Lady Catherine Hotham, widow of Sir John Hotham Bt. The Burtons were moving up in the world. A son, William, was baptised at Beverley Minster on 2 October 1723 suggesting the Burtons were still living in the town; it must have been around this time that Hotham Hall was being built. The site chosen for the house was at the northern edge of the parish of North Cave, where some land belonging to the manor of Hotham was located. The Burtons were living there by August 1725 when another son, Robert, was baptised in North Cave church.

William Burton died in 1752 and was buried at Cottingham. His monument in Cottingham church bears the following inscription:

The hospitable and friendly manner in which he lived among his Neighbours His strict Regard to Truth and Justice in all his dealings, and his Kindness & Charity to the Poor, gained him he Character of a Worthy Honest Man.

William Burton II On his death in 1752 William was succeeded by his son, also William, who the previous year had married Dorothy daughter of Sir Edmund Anderson of Kilnwick Percy. The marriage had met with a certain amount of opposition from Dorothy’s father, and some of the love letters

1 ERALS DDX113/14 2 ERALS, DDNA/239

2 written when the couple were forbidden to meet have survived, including the following, written during the Autumn of 1750: 3

Dear Miss Anderson,

Altho I am deny’d by Sr Edmund the pleasure of seeing you at Kilwick you may be very certain that you are constantly attend’d by my Prayers & earnest wishes for your Happiness. May every guardian Angel watch my fair ones Eyelids when in slumbers & protect her when awake. I flatter myself Miss Anderson with the Hope that, tho’ Sr Edmund has taken this sudden Turn, that your Affections are not estrang’d from your most faithfull & most sincere Admirer then let us not doubt but to see that happy Day which shall make us one in the Eye both of God & Man.’ I hope you will not Deny the favour of a Line to him who if you should prove cruel must be the most wretch’d & forlorn as well as your most eternal Admirer W. Burton

Eventually the couple were married, on 11 March 1751, and in November 1752 William inherited the Hotham estate. It was in September 1757, when Sir Edmund Anderson was visiting his daughter and son-in-law at Hotham Hall, that the house was attacked by rioters. These were mobs of men, women and children wanting to put a stop to the implementation of the Militia Act, passed in June 1757. The regular British army was overstretched fighting the French in various parts of the world, and there was need for a militia to keep peace at home and to defend the country against invasion. Under the new act the militia was to be chosen by ballot from all men aged between 18 and 50 years, except, amongst others, peers, clergy, dissenting officers, and peace and parish officers. Lists were drawn up of all eligible men in each parish, and it was as the lists were about to be handed to the authorities that the unrest occurred. The rioters objected to the fact that the method of obtaining men now lay on all adult males, not just the propertied classes, and there was a fear that the militia would be sent abroad.

In a letter written the following year Sir Edmund recorded the events that had taken place at Hotham. His own house, Kilnwick Percy Hall, was among others subject to similar attacks.

A day was appointed, I believe, all over for the Chief Constables [of each wapentake/division] to carry in Lists of the names of those fit to bear arms in the Militia. I was at Hotham [Hall] on the Sunday night before, taking leave of my son and daughter Burton and when we came from Church, their Constable asked whether they should carry them [the lists of men] to Beverley or no, on the morrow; I said Yes, by all means, for tho I was not at Beverley when the warrants were given out or signed any; I knew it was right they should be carried in. He said the people were averse to it (and I knew they had been so long). However in the morning, when I came down to breakfast they asked me if I had not been frightened by the Mob who came into their yard [at Hotham] about 2 o’clock in the morning, and wanted their servants to go along with them, but they talked to em out of the

3 Lincolnshire Archives Office, papers of Anderson family of Broughton

3 window excused themselves saying they were going with their master and mistress over the to pay a visit to my son Will at Lea [near Gainsborough].’4

William Burton died in 1765, and was buried at Cottingham. In the absence of an heir the Hotham estate passed to his brother Robert.

Burton family monuments in St Mary’s church, Cottingham

Far left: William Burton, died 1752 and his wife Catherine, died 1787

Left: William Burton II died 1765

Robert Burton Robert Burton was living in Hull when he married Mary Fawsitt of North Ferriby in 1749. They probably moved to Hotham Hall soon after Robert inherited the estate in 1765. (His mother Dorothy was living in Beverley in 1770. She died in 1784 and was buried, like her husband, at Cottingham). It was Robert who extended the house by adding the two-storey wings, shown as built in the fine mid 19th-century painting by R.B. Harraden (below). The west wing was later rebuilt, but the east wing, which is dated 1772, survives.

4 Lincolnshire Archives Office, papers of Anderson family of Broughton – letter dated 29/3/1758

4 When Robert and Mary first moved to Hotham Hall the estate was quite small, and adjoined that of Sir George Montgomery Metham who lived at North Cave Hall, a mansion that has gone almost without trace. Sir George was the son of Hugh Montogomery and his wife Barbara (née Metham). Hugh had died at North Cave in 1763 leaving his son, who had taken the additional surname Metham, in sole charge of the estate. Born in 1716, George was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge and the Inner Temple, and also studied at the Academie Royale in Paris. During what has been described as a ‘wild and extravagant career’ in London during his youth, his escapades included eloping with a well-known actress. In 1757 Sir George was elected MP for Hull, and was re-elected unopposed in 1761. However, in 1764 it was said that ‘Sir George is represented to be in very necessitous circumstances, and it is said that he will have a difficulty to be re-chose at Hull’. He did not stand for Parliament again.

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Sir George Montgomery Metham’s house at North Cave (1766 plan at Giggleswick School)

In spite of his strained finances, Sir George had spent money on landscaping the grounds around his house at North Cave, and on the service buildings. The agricultural writer Arthur Young visited North Cave in 1768 and gave the following account:

My first excursion was to Cave, the seat of Sir George Montgomery Metham.... Sir George assured me, that when he came to his estate, he found his house in the middle of what deserved the name of a bog; the ground all very flat, the offices nosing every window of the mansion, and all in the midst of an open country, with not an acorn planted. His designs are not yet complete; but what is done, gives a very pleasing specimen of judgement and taste. Behind the house is an agreeable sloping fall, down to a very fine irregular sheet of water, the banks of which are weaved in the truest taste, with a just medium between the slight trivial bend (which looks like an old streight line turned into a waved one) and the strong, bold, and sudden indentures which should ever be surrounded with natural woods, or wild unornamented ground; a grass-walk waves along the banks, which, is close shaven, and kept

5 in neat order, and this is bounded by a thick plantation; so that the whole being in the stile of a pleasure-ground, no other plan of forming the water would have had so great an effect. The head at the great end of the water appears at present full in view from both sides; but Sir George designs to give the corner opposite to the house a sweeping wave around the new plantation, which will take off the effect, and be a great improvement; when the new plantations get up, the other end will be quite hid, and the whole have no other appearance than that of ornamented nature. Adjoining are many new plantations, sketched with much taste, with zig-zag walks through them in an agreeable stile; a paddock is paling in around the whole, which will be well surrounded with wood. In a wood where there was once only a paltry stream, Sir George has made a beautiful lake, and instead of being totally open to every wind, he has disposed on all sides numerous and thriving plantations.5

In April 1773 Sir George was forced to sell the estate, heavily mortgaged, to his friend and neighbour, Robert Burton of Hotham Hall.6 The 1773 deed of sale refers to the ‘capital messuage or mansion house in North Cave aforesaid wherein the said Sir George Montgomery Metham now dwells with the stables coach house and dove house and other offices, buildings, gardens, plantations and pleasure grounds to the same belonging’. Also included in the sale was ‘all that messuage tenement or dwelling house with the barns stable and other outbuildings and fold yard to the same belonging situated in North Cave aforesaid near the said capital messuage or mansion house’, a reference to Manor Farm, which he had recently rebuilt.

When Sir George Montgomery Metham lived at North Cave, the Beverley road ran north of the lake he had made near his house, and marked the boundary of his property. It is shown in this position on a map of 1772, just before he sold his estate to Robert Burton. The Burtons probably had the road moved south of Manor Farm soon after the purchase, to give a better view from Hotham Hall towards the lake Sir George Metham had created and which now belonged to them.

Jefferys’ plan, 1772, showing the Beverley road running north of the lake. Hotham Hall, labelled ‘R. Burton Esq’ is also shown.

5 A. Young, A Six Months Tour through the North of England (1769), i, 166-8

6 ER Deeds Registry, vol AQ, p. 216, no. 19

6 Burton must have demolished the North Cave Hall after purchasing it in 1773, and reused some of the materials at Hotham Hall, for example to build the stable block.7

The Christie Burtons Robert Burton died in 1802, and his wife Mary two years later. There were no direct heirs and the Hotham estate passed to Robert Christie Burton. He was the grandson of Robert Burton’s cousin Major General Ralph Burton of Hull Bank, and son of Ralph’s daughter Mary Burton who had married Lt. Gen. Napier Christie in 1782.

Born in America, Napier Christie had served in the British Guards and fought on the British side in the American revolution. He married Mary Burton, Ralph’s daughter, in October 1782, the year after he had been released from captivity at Yorkstown, having been taken prisoner by the Americans. He took the additional surname Burton. He was elected MP for Beverley in 1796 and became Governor of what is now Ontario Province in Canada in 1799, but was dismissed for a breach of military discipline. He served as MP for Beverley again 1802 but was defeated in the 1806 election, and following a quarrel with one of his rivals fought a duel with him although neither party was hurt. They lived mainly in London. His wife died in 1801, and it was their son, Robert Christie Burton, who inherited the Hotham estate following the deaths of Robert Burton in 1802 and Mary Burton (née Fawsitt) in 1804.

Robert Christie Burton was a spendthrift. In February 1812 he married Mary widow of Joseph Thompson of Womersley Hall. Under the terms of the marriage settlement certain properties in North Cave and Hotham passed to her on his death. Robert was already in debt and in May that year one of his creditors ‘put an execution’ into his house at Hotham, but had to withdraw as all the household property belonged to Mary. He was then imprisoned, eventually in the Fleet Prison where he remained for several years. His wife Mary died in London in 1814. In 1818, still in debtor’s prison, Robert Christie Burton was elected as an MP for Beverley though there were complaints about the legality of the election. In 1819 his discharge from the Fleet Prison was ordered since MPs could not be imprisoned for debt. He stood again in the 1820 election but polled very few votes. He probably went to Paris soon after the election, to avoid returning to prison, and died there in 1822.

On 23 November 1813 a notice appeared in the Hull Packet advertising Hotham Hall to let for a term of 3 or 5 years. It was described as mansion, gardens, hothouse etc and 136 a. of rich pasture and meadow land. It is not known who took the tenancy.

The Clitherow family When Robert Christie Burton died in 1822 the Hotham estate passed to his sister, Sarah Burton. Born in Nice in 1786, she had married in February 1809 John Clitherow, a captain in her father’s regiment. Their son, John Christie Burton, was born in December 1809.

7 The stable block has two reused features with misleading dates. One is an inscribed stone set into a pediment with the initials of George and Magdalen Metham and the date 1683; the other is a weather vane dated 1769, with the initials of George Montgomery Metham.

7 Although John Clitherow had no local connections when he married Sarah Burton his ancestors had been merchants in Hull in the Middle Ages. From there they moved to London. Christopher Clitherow, born 1578, ironmonger, served as Lord Mayor of London and was knighted. His son James purchased the manor of Boston at Brentford, Middlesex. Boston House was thereafter the seat of the Clitherow family. Boston House was inherited by John Clitherow (1782-1852) many years after he and Sarah were divorced (see below).

Sarah and Henry Peters (Burton) After nine years of marriage to John Clitherow, Sarah (née Burton) eloped to the Continent with Henry Peters of Savile Row. John Clitherow obtained a private Act of Parliament in 1819 to divorce her and secure the descent of the Hotham estate to their son John and his heirs. Sarah then married Henry Peters in Paris. Three years later Sarah inherited Hotham and they moved there. In the 1820s plans were drawn up by Hull architect Appleton Bennison to rebuild the west wing of Hotham Hall, but these did not come to fruition. It is likely that Sarah and Henry could not afford to carry out the improvements. In 1827 it was announced that Henry Peters was applying for a licence to take the additional surname Burton.

Henry Peters Burton was the Whig (Liberal) Member of Parliament for Beverley 1830-37.8 Robert Sharp, a schoolmaster from South Cave who kept a detailed diary of local events, made the following comment after the 1830 election: ‘There has been a meeting at Beverley called the Beacon Club in honour of Mr Burton being elected for Beverley. It seems his Crest is a Beacon, these Clubs are got up for the most part, as an opportunity for spouting, it seems as if some or one of the orators wanted the Proprietors of Hotham Hall to be hereditary Members for Beverley.’9 Although of the same political persuasion, Sharp disliked Burton; three years earlier he had described him as a ‘most high and mighty Landlord’ who threatened to evict his tenants if they did anything to displease him.10

Henry Burton’s book plate

A newspaper account in December 1835 refers to the Burtons’ charitable works in Beverley, which included providing half a dozen fat bullocks and distributing blankets, coals and flour to the needy. At other times they provided coals and

8 As an MP he was officially known as Henry Burton Peters but local newspaper accounts always refer to him and his wife by the surname Burton. 9 J.E. & P.A. Crowther (eds), The Diary of Robert Sharp of South Cave (1997), 279 [6 Oct. 1830] 10 Ibid. 98 9 Jan 1827.

8 soup to the ‘necessitous poor of Hotham’. The Holderness Hunt met regularly at Hotham Hall.

In 1845 Henry and Sarah moved to Devon. In 1850 Hotham Hall was advertised to let ‘with immediate possession and well furnished and in complete repair’. Reference was made to the pleasure grounds, gardens, hothouses, icehouse and extensive stabling and coach houses.

19th-century tenants of Hotham Hall When the census was taken on 30 March 1851, only a housekeeper, 68-year-old widow Sarah Ranson and a house servant, Cecily Sheffield, aged 19, were living in the house. Soon after the new tenant, Maurice Johnson of Ayscoughfee Hall in Spalding, Lincolnshire moved in, paying an annual rent of £250. Henry and Sarah Burton reserved the use of the garret in the West Wing (the ‘South Bulls eye’) and a small room over the washhouse.

Johnson, a descendant of the founder of the well-known Spalding Gentlemen’s Society, moved to Hotham with his wife Isabella (née Swan), daughter of a Lincoln solicitor, and their young daughter, Mary. Another daughter, Edith, was born in 1852 and baptised at North Cave church. Although the lease was for 7 years there was an option to terminate it after 3 or 5. Henry Burton was not happy with Johnson as a tenant and did not renew the lease after 3 years.

The next tenant was Major William Arkwright, who requested that before his family moved in three poplar trees near the hall were taken down in case they fell on it, injuring members of his family. William Arkwright was the great-grandson of Sir Richard Arkwright, inventor of the water-powered spinning frame.

9 William was born at Eyam in Derbyshire in 1809, the son of Robert Arkwright and his wife Frances Crawford Kemble, an actress. By the 1840s he was a Major in the 6th Inniskilling Dragoons, a Cavalry regiment. In 1852 he married 19-year-old Fanny Susan Thornewill of Staffordshire and in 1854 William and Fanny moved to Hotham Hall.11 A daughter, Fanny, had been born the previous year, and shortly after moving to the hall a second daughter, Emma, was baptised in North Cave church. Sophia was born in 1855 and a son, William, on April 21 1857. Less than a month after his son’s birth William senior died at the age of only 47. On the day of his funeral his body was carried in a procession of the tenantry from the hall to the railway station, where it was taken by train to Chesterfield and then on to Sutton Scarsdale. His father Robert lived at Sutton Scarsdale Hall, and William was buried in the family vault in Sutton church.

William’s widow and children left Hotham Hall soon after his death. On 30 May 1857 there was a notice in the Herald advertising the sale by auction of garden tools and implements, sheep, cattle, horse and pigs, poultry and plants, together with the horses from the small stud he had established. The ‘budding and greenhouse plants’ included heliotropes, petunias, fuchsias, verbenas, geraniums, calceolarias, lobelias, fine large camelias, myrtles etc, together with ‘a choice variety’ of pear, plum, peach, nectarine and fig trees, and vines. There was also a 7-ton weighing machine and a steaming apparatus and with force pump and lead cistern. The following month the house was advertised to let.

Notice from York Herald, 20 June 1857

11 In 1851, before his marriage, William Arkwright was lodging in Skerne near , and may have been there to help manage the estate of his late uncle, Charles Arkwright.

10 The next lessee was Edward Ward Fox of Belmont, Chesterfield (Derbyshire), who was probably an acquaintance of the Arkwrights. During his tenancy there was a report in June 1860 of a dreadful storm which had caused considerable damage to trees on the estate, one having fallen on the lodge.

In the 1861 census Edward and his wife Eleanor were at the house with their three daughters, Constance, Gertrude and Lucy, the last having been baptised at North Cave. (Another daughter, Mabel, was baptised at North Cave the following year.) Twelve servants also lived in the house, including the Goodliffes, a married couple. They were:

Sarah Edgill, single, aged 58, born Hull, ‘servant’ (presumably cook, her occupation in 1851) Mary E. Richardson, single, aged 45, laundry maid, born Westminster Mary A. Rositor, single, 37, nurse, born Somerset Jane Goodliffe, married, 25, housemaid, born Newbold, Derbyshire Joanna Pratt, single, 17, housemaid, born Brantingham Hannah Wall, single, 20, kitchen maid, born Bolsover, Derbyshire Sarah A. Way, single, 14, nurse, born Northumberland Charles Goodliffe, married, 24, gardener, born Somerset Samuel Needham, single, 28, butler, born Derbyshire Richard Hallam, single, 23, coachman, born Bolsover, Derbyshire George Peat, single, 19, groom, born Newbold Derbyshire John Blanchard, single, 14, messenger, born North Cave

It is interesting to see that several of the servants came from Derbyshire (including two from Newbold where Edward Fox was born) and must have come with the family when they moved to Hotham Hall.

In 1862 Fox decided to terminate his tenancy, finding the ‘whole place’ to be ‘thoroughly out of repair’ through age and neglect. In 1871 he and his family were living at Haddon House in Bakewell, Derbyshire. Hotham Hall was then empty for a couple of years. In April 1863 a number of trees were sold from the estate. In July 1864 the Burtons returned from Portishead in Somerset, where they had moved after living in Devon for many years. The following report appeared in the Beverley Guardian, 9 July 1864.

HOTHAM. On Wednesday week, Henry Burton, Esq. returned to his residence in the above village, after an absence of several years, on which occasion to show their respect, about one hundred gentlemen on horseback met Mr. and Mrs. Burton, at the Brough Station, and preceded them through South Cave, Everthorpe and North Cave, to Hotham Hall, passing on their route, under several tastefully designed triumphal arches on which were appropriate inscriptions. From the tower of the church and from a number of private residences, banners were displayed, and the school children assembled on the lawn to assist in giving a hearty welcome. On alighting from the carriage Mr. Burton came forward; and admist enthusiastic cheering thanked them, on behalf of himself and Mrs. Burton, for the kind reception they had met with: after which the company numbering several hundreds, from the adjacent villages, retired and so large an assemblage never before having been witnessed in that village.

11 In spite of this enthusiastic welcome within days negotiations began with Samuel Fox of Townend House near Sheffield to lease him Hotham Hall. In September, only weeks after returning to East Yorkshire, the Burtons went back to Portishead. Sarah Burton died on 11 February 1869 at the Manor House, Bathford near Bath, aged 82. The following year Henry married Mary Cartwright, who was in her late 30s. He died in 1874.

Samuel Fox, tenant of Hotham Hall from 1864, was an industrialist and inventor. He was born in 1815 at Bradwell, Derbyshire, one of nine children of a shuttle maker. He does not seem to have been related to the previous tenant, Edward Ward Fox. His fortune came in part from the invention and manufacture of the modern steel-ribbed collapsible ‘Paragon’ umbrella. He and his wife Maria had one son, William Henry. Fox had purchased an estate at  0114 288 4281

North Cliffe, where he would eventually build InformationCliffe Lodge.About In July Us 1870Policies he entertainedAdmissions Contact boys Us ✉ [email protected]field.sch.uk from the Reformatory School providing lunch and organising cricket and  McIntyre Rd, Stocksbridge Sheffield S36 1DG other games, and singing and dancing in the grounds of Hotham Hall.

Why is Samuel Fox Famous?

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In 1831 Samuel Fox left Bradwell. He went to work as a wire drawer with Samuel Cocker.

In 1842 Samuel Fox came to Stocksbridge to set up his own wire drawer factory.

In 1851 Samuel Fox started manufacturing the Paragon umbrella.

Samuel Fox also made crinolines. Crinolines is a stiffened or hooped petticoat worn to make a long skirt stand out

More people came to work and live in Stocksbridge because the Paragon umbrella was very popular. The Paragon umbrella sold all over the world.

Samuel Fox built a train station, and he expanded his factory to keep up with demand. On 1 March 1871 ‘in consequence of a change of residence’ the sale took place of furnishings belonging to the Fox family at Hotham Hall. These included an ‘extensive assemblage of handsome carpets’, ‘rich suites of window curtains’ and chandeliers and candelabra. The materials of a vinery were also sold. On 9 March the contents of Samuel Fox’s aviary were sold, together with plants, garden implements (including a ‘Pony Lawn Machine’) and farm implements. The notice advertising the forthcoming sale was headed ‘HOTHAM HALL. A DAY AMONGST THE TURTLE-DOVES, CANARIES, AND GOLDEN AND SILVER PHEASANTS’. The auctioneer had ‘great pleasure in announcing the above treat’. The auction of about a hundred songster and ornamental birds would take place ‘amidst the Sylvan Shades and Classic Bowers encircling the above-named delightful and picturesque Mansion’. This was an original way of enticing potential buyers, the notice ending with the following: ‘Suffice it to say of the exquisite Scenery around Hotham Hall, with its Elysian Waterfalls, it must be seen to be appreciated’.

The Stracey-Clitherows On the death of Sarah Burton in 1869 ownership of the Hotham estate had passed to Edward John Stracey-Clitherow, a member of her first husband’s family. Under the terms of her divorce from her first husband, John Clitherow, Sarah’s estates went to their son John Christie Clitherow and his heirs. However he had died in 1865, four years before his mother, leaving no children, and the estate he would have inherited therefore passed to his cousin Col. Edward John Stracey who had taken additional name Clitherow.

Born in 1820, Edward was married to Harriet née Marjoribanks. They lived at Boston House in Middlesex, but soon after inheriting the Hotham Hall estate they decided to make their home there, ending Samuel Fox’s tenancy of the house.

Boston House, Brentford, Middlesex (photo by P.G. Champion)

Having moved to Hotham Hall, Edward Stracey-Clitherow and his wife began to plan major alterations, altering and enlarging the house in 1872. (See below, Appendix.) At the same time the trees on the estate were thinned. A notice in the York Herald, 23 March 1872,

13 advertised the sale of 76 lots of well-grown timber trees from the grounds surrounding Hotham Hall, including ash, elm, beech, chestnut, sycamore, larch and spruce. The following year 54 lots of cut timber were sold, mainly ash, elm and beech, and in 1875 yet more trees were advertised for sale.

In April 1876 one of the kitchen maids at Hotham Hall, Jessie Hardy, received severe burns, her clothing having caught fire when she was cleaning a grate. According to a report in the Hull Packet (21 April 1876) the butler, William Swanborough, covered her with a woollen rug. Neither of these servants were at the house when the census was taken in 1881. The returns show that by that date John Stracey, Edward’s nephew, a Lieutenant in the Army, was living with his uncle and aunt at Hotham Hall. Eleven servants lived in, four male and seven female, although their specific occupants were not given. When the census was taken in 1891 the family were away from home, but William North, the butler, who had headed the list of servants in 1881, was there, together with a housekeeper, nurse, lady’s maid, two housemaids and a laundry maid.

During the 1890s Colonel Clitherow was often judge/exhibitor at local horticultural shows. He died at Hotham on 29 September 1900. His death was reported in the Hull Daily Mail, where it was remarked that he had never been ‘very prominent in the affairs of Howdenshire’. His widow moved away, and died at Arundel in Sussex in 1906.

Hotham Hall in the 20th century In 1901 the next generation of Stracey-Clitherows were at Hotham Hall - John and Alice, who had married in 1897. Alice (née Princep) had four children from her first marriage to Charles Gurney.

Print from original painting by George Frederick Watts of Miss Alice Princep, later Mrs- Stracey-Clitherow.

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Eight servants lived in. Only one had been born locally, Annie Wild, one of housemaids, who came from Beverley. Edward Horn, butler, came from Kent, Catherine McGregory, parlour maid, from Scotland, Matilda Coulci, cook, from Belgium, Alice Lewis, kitchen maid, from Buckinghamshire, Sarah Tugwood, kitchen maid, from Oxfordshire, Harold Bigsworth, pantry boy, from Essex and John Rainbird, groom, from Norfolk. The coachman, William Gascoigne and his wife Susan lived separately at Hotham Hall.

Newspapers make reference various events that took place at Hotham Hall, including a Gala Day in August 1902, to celebrate the recent Coronation. There must have been great excitement in October 1905 when King Edward VII, who was spending several days at Londesborough, visited Hotham Hall and planted a tree in the grounds. In November 1906 Mrs Stracey-Clitherow entertained the branch of the Yorkshire Needlework Guild, that she had established. The following year the Countess of Londesborough opened a garden fete in the grounds of Hotham Hall.

By 1911 John and Alice Stracey-Clitherow shared their home with Alice’s son from her previous marriage, Tom Claud Gurney, aged 30, his wife Muriel, aged 25 and their daughter Juliet, aged four. (At that date Tom was a Captain in the 2nd Life Guards, a cavalry regiment in the British Army. In 1914, when war broke out, he took his horse, Humpty, with him to France. Together they fought in several battles, and both survived. When Humpty died many years later he was buried in the grounds of Hotham Hall).

The five male servants at Hotham Hall in 1911 were the butler (Albert Collis), footman, ‘odd man’, and two grooms. The female servants were the cook (Margaret Hughes), two kitchen maids, two housemaids, another maid and a nurse, Elizabeth Sedgley.12

Staff of Hotham Hall 1910 (Yorkshire Times 2/2/1973)

12 When Elizabeth Sedgley died in 1935, having served the family for 30 years, she was buried in the Clitherow section of the graveyard at Hotham.

15 In 1917 Miss Muriel Wilson of Tranby Croft, a celebrated local beauty and socialite, daughter of the late Arthur Wilson, a Hull shipping magnate, married Captain Warde and the couple spent their honeymoon at Hotham Hall.

Alice Stracey-Clitherow died at Boston House in Middlesex in 1919, but her funeral was held at Hotham church. In January 1921 the Hotham Hall estate, amounting to some 3,300 a., was put up for sale. The house was advertised as fitted with electric lights. Included in the sale was the park of c. 150 a., pleasure gardens, walled-in kitchen garden, glass houses, trout stream, ornamental lake, stables, garage and clock tower. There was no interest in the estate as a whole at the auction, so Hotham Hall and around 300 a. was offered as a separate lot. The bidding only reached £22,000, so no sale took place.

In October 1926 Edward Prince of Wales stayed at Hotham Hall with John Stracey-Clitherow, during a visit to the area which included laying the foundation stone at the new Ferens Art Gallery in Hull.

John Stracey-Clitherow died in 1931, the year after the well-known Beverley artist, Fred Elwell, painted his portrait. He was known as a keen sportsman, lover of horses and a successful driver of ‘four-in-hands’. At his funeral on 1 July pipers from the Scots Guards led the procession from Hotham Hall to Hotham church, piping the funeral march ‘Flowers of the Forest’.

Painting of Col. J.B. Stracey-Clitherow by Fred Elwell, 1930 (private collection, reproduced in W.

Loncaster & M. Shields, Fred Elwell – A Life in Art (2014), 121

16 The Hotham estate was inherited by his stepson, Thomas Claud Gurney, who was to assume the name Stracey-Clitherow. John Stracey-Clitherow left a portait of his ancestor, Sir Christopher Clitherow, to the Irongmongers Company in London.

He made a number bequests to servants. Albert George Burfield received £100 and a life annuity of £52, whether or not he was still in his service. His ‘odd man’, Alfred Leftley, received a life annuity of £52. Life annuities of £26 went to John Wright, to a late head groom called Layer, and to Mr and Mrs James Digby. His butler, John Bennett, was left £300, provided he was still employed by him, and £100 went to John Rainbird. All the rest of the indoor and outdoor servants or employees who had been at Hotham for more than two years received six months’ wages.

In 1937, six years after Thomas Gurney (Clitherow) inherited the Hotham Hall estate, his wife Muriel (née Sykes), died. When a special census was taken in 1939, on the eve of World War II, there were only servants at Hotham Hall, including John Bennett, the butler. There was also an odd job man, footman and several maids. In 1940 the house was damaged when parachute mines exploded nearby.

Thomas Gurney (Clitherow) married, as his second wife, Helen Maxwell, in 1941. He died in 1963 and the Hotham Hall estate passed to his eldest daughter Juliet, born 1906. She had married John Henton Carver in 1932. John died in 1968, and Juliet in 1969, when the estate passed to their son, Peter Carver. He chose to pass the house and grounds to his sister, Jan Odey, and her husband Richard (Dick), and the Odeys lived at Hotham Hall for a number of years. In 1984 the house and just over 40 a. of land was sold to Mr Stephen and Mrs Carolyn Martin, who made it their home, selling it to Linda Kilburn of Hotham in 2020.

The grounds of Hotham Hall13 When Hotham Hall was built by William Burton c. 1720 it is likely that a small park would have been laid out. Most of the land associated with the house actually lay in North Cave township. The marriage settlement of William Burton’s son, drawn up in March 1751, refers to a several ‘closes and grounds’, the names of which generally correspond to those on a plan of 1813 when they were clearly part of the park, although used for grazing.14

A plan dated 1766 shows the allotments made when North Cave was enclosed the previous year.15 Although the area south of Hotham Hall lies within North Cave, rather than Hotham, township, most of it is not included on this plan, presumably because it was all old enclosure belonging to Burton that was being used as parkland. What the 1766 plan does show is a small area of old enclosure belonging to Burton that may have formed the southern section of an early 18th-century park (included on the plan simply because it adjoined open-field land that the commissioners were dealing with). The southern boundary was where the ‘Old Fish Pond’ is marked on the 1855 OS plan. This took the formal of an elongated rectangle or canal, a feature often found in parks laid out in the early 18th century. The ‘canal’ is not

13 This section draws heavily on a report compiled for the Yorkshire Gardens Trust by the authors, Susan and David Neave, in 2013. 14 ERALS, DDHH/2/29/2; DDHH/4/6/45 15 Copy of plan at Giggleswick School, owners of land at North Cave.

17 shown on the 1766 plan, which was drawn simply to show the enclosure allotments, but was on the first detailed plan of the grounds of Hotham Hall (1813) and may well have been constructed in the early 18th century.

Left: Plan of land south of Hotham Hall in 1766 showing Robert Burton’s old enclosures (coloured green) which were probably parkland by this date. (Plan at Giggleswick School)

Right: OS plan 1855 showing the same piece of land, with the ‘canal’ marked, perhaps part of a landscape created soon after Hotham Hall was built in the early 1720s.

Further south, between here and the large, irregular fish pond associated with the manor house at North Cave, was a large block of open field land awarded in 1765 to Robert Burton. This adjoined the land belonging to Sir George Montgomery Metham that Burton was able to purchase in 1773, enabling him to extend his parkland as far south as the Methams’ old manor house, which he demolished.

A plan of the grounds of Hotham Hall in 1813 probably shows the work carried out by Robert Burton before his death in 1802.16 East of the hall is the lawn, and beyond that the lake with cascades. South of the hall were the three closes that separated it from the lake formerly associated with North Cave manor house. The first two closes were old enclosure (Furtherby Ings and Espin Close), but the third, Babbs Croft, measuring just under 21 a., was part of the former open field land awarded to Burton at enclosure in 1765. The use of dashed lines between these closes and in the area north of the hall, in contrast to the solid lines dividing other closes, must indicate the extent of the park and pleasure grounds at this date. Plantations had been laid out along the eastern side of the parkland. Northeast of the

16 ERALS, DDHH/4/6/45

18 hall lay the kitchen gardens and hothouse. It seems unlikely that Robert Christie Burton, who inherited the estate following the deaths of Robert in 1802 and his wife Mary in 1804, undertook any of the improvements shown on the 1813 plan. In 1822 Robert Christie Burton’s sister Sarah and her husband Henry Peters (who took the additional surname Burton) succeeded to the estate. Plans made c. 1823 to alter and extend the house were not carried out, but some additional landscaping may have taken place. (Map evidence shows that the plantations on the northern boundary, for example, came between 1813 and 1855.) Sarah and Henry remained at Hotham Hall until 1845 when they retired to Devon.

Part of plan showing the grounds of Hotham Hall in 1813 (ERALS, DDHH/4/6/45)

19 The mid 19th-century OS plan shows the completed landscape. The park is wide at the northern end, narrowing towards the south. To the north of Hotham Hall a plantation (Orchard Plantation) that runs along the edge of Harrybeck Lane marks the boundary. (The landscaping to the north of the lane is associated with a different property, Hotham House.) There are further plantations on the eastern edge of the park (through which runs the beck), including Coombs plantation in which a summerhouse is marked. At the southern end lies Fish Pond Plantation, part of the 1760s landscaping associated with North Cave manor house.

There are several water features shown on the OS map published in 1855 (left) including the main lake with cascades to the east of the hall, which still dominates the pleasure grounds of Hotham Hall. Also shown is a small pond in front of the house, the long, regular ‘Old Fish Pond’, and the large pond to the south created in the 1760s. Features to the north- west of Hotham Hall include hot houses and an ice house.

Between about 1850 and 1870 Hotham Hall was usually let to tenants. After inheriting the estate in 1869 and taking up residence soon after Edward Stracey-Clitherow carried out a certain amount of planting. These included 2 Wellingtonias in 1873, 3 more Wellingtonias and other trees in 1877, and 2 mountain ash, 2 horse chestnut and 1 sycamore in 1880. All these were planted to the north of Hotham Hall. In 1882-83 he planted areas near the brook

20 and summerhouse, perhaps an extension of or replanting in the area known as Flora Plantation.17

Kitchen Gardens On the 1813 plan there are three enclosed gardens north of the hall. The largest, measuring over an acre, has a large hot house on the south side; to the east is another small enclosure, measuring less than ¼ of an acre, marked as garden. The third garden enclosure, measuring just under ½ acre, is north of the stable courtyard, and has a greenhouse associated with it.

1813 plan showing the kitchen gardens north-west of the hall (ERALS, DDHH/4/6/45)

The largest of the three gardens survives. When the house was put up for sale in 1984 the walled garden was described as a very productive market garden with extensive greenhouses and workshops.

The walled enclosure, with derelict greenhouses, survives but is no longer associated with Hotham Hall. The former ice-house is close by.

See also Appendix: Hotham Hall – Architecture and Architects

PRINCIPAL SOURCES

Books, articles & reports

K.J. Allison (ed.), Victoria County History, Yorkshire E. Riding, IV (1979)

J.E. & P.A. Crowther (eds), The Diary of Robert Sharp of South Cave (1997)

D. Neave ‘Hotham Hall and its Owners’, unpublished typescript notes, 1975

D. & S. Neave, ‘East Riding Historic Designed Landscapes: Hotham Hall’, report for Yorkshire Gardens Trust, June 2013

17 ERALS, DDHH/4/6/47

21 D. Neave & D. Turnbull, Landscaped Parks and Gardens of East Yorkshire, 1992

S. Neave, Medieval Parks of East Yorkshire, 1991

S. Neave, ‘Manor House, North Cave’, unpublished house history, 2012

N. Pevsner & D. Neave, Buildings of England: Yorkshire, York and the East Riding (1995)

M. Whitlock , ‘North Cave’s Own War Horse’, Village Link article (n.d.)

A. Young, A Six Months Tour through the North of England (1769)

Primary sources

East Riding Archive Office [ERALS], now part of the Treasure House, Beverley

Hotham Hall estate records (DDHH; DDX/113) Nat West bank deposit: deed box Burton/Montgomery Metham families (DDNA) Records of Anderson family of Burnby and Kilnwick Percy (DDAN)

ERALS also houses the East Riding Deeds Registry (property transactions 1708-1974)

Giggleswick School

Plan of North Cave in 1766 showing enclosure allotments

Lincolnshire Archives Office

Records of Anderson family of Broughton (And; 2-7 And)

Websites bhsproject.co.uk (Brentford High Street project with inf. on Boston House and the Clitherow family) findmypast.co.uk (family records including census returns 1841-1911, and selected British newspapers 1710-1953) historyofparliamentonline.org (entries on owners of Hotham Hall who served as MPs)

IMAGES IN THIS REPORT NOT TO BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT PERMISSION

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