Newby Hall: The Architectural Gem of the North

Newby Hall: The Architectural Gem of the North

Overview

Established in the 1690s and expanded in the 1760s, Newby Hall boasts a rich history of architectural evolution, wartime contingency plans, and remains a family estate with unique attractions like a teddy bear collection and historic statue gallery.

 

History

It is easy to see why Newby Hall, near Ripon, has been described as being the ‘jewel of the north’. Newby’s recent history begins in the 1690s, when local MP Sir Edward Blackett bought the manor and promptly built a new mansion on the site – so it is said, with the help of Sir Christopher Wren, architect of St Paul’s Cathedral. In 1747, the house passed to the Weddell family. Local MP William Weddell inherited a sizeable portion of money, and used it to enlarge the house in the 1760s with help from architects John Carr and Robert Adam, whose work is evident at Newby today. After Weddell died, the estate passed to Thomas Robinson, sometime Lord Grantham, whose daughter Lady Mary Robinson inherited Newby on his death in 1859. If this sounds like a plot from a Sunday night television drama, it almost is. Lady Mary’s granddaughter, Mary Compton, inherited Newby in 1915, and the house remains in the hands of the Compton family today. When in 1940 the Coats Mission was devised to evacuate the royal family from London in the event of a German invasion, Newby was chosen as one of the houses to which they’d go. This never happened, and as a result, Newby remained safe during the war, unperturbed by visiting troops, and untouched by stray bombs. The house was opened to the public in 1948 by current owner Richard Compton’s grandfather Major Edward Compton, a fanatical gardener who described his inheritance of Newby as ‘a lovely picture with no frame’ – a house without a garden. He put this right, and now the garden includes a popular model railway, on which visitors can ride.

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Best known for

Being the home of the broadcaster and writer Gyles Brandreth’s 1,000-strong teddy bear collection, donated to Newby and its specially-built Bear House in 2016. 

 

As seen in

The 2007 adaptation of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park.

Newby Hall: The Architectural Gem of the North

Don’t go home without seeing

The statue gallery, full of William Weddell’s Grand Tour spoils, including Roman artefacts from the first century BC which arrived at Newby in the 1760s in 19 separate chests.

 

Drop by

The Grantham Arms in Boroughbridge, just a few miles from Newby.

 

Need another local heritage fix?

Check out Markenfield Hall, the moated, medieval and mostly unknown country house eight miles away.

 

Our favourite line

‘The finest house I saw in Yorkshire’ – Celia Fiennes, 1697

eleanor_doughty

Eleanor Doughty

April 22, 2024, 5:07 p.m.

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