HOTHAM HALL, EAST YORKSHIRE 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 Beverley, and just within the parish of North Cave. 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 London 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 England 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 Humber 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. I 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.