Any questions? Try here first

Monument Type(s):

• MANOR HOUSE (Medieval to 19th Century - 1066 AD to 1900 AD)

Associated Finds

• COIN (Post Medieval - 1540 AD to 1900 AD)

Other References/Statuses

• AMIE Reference / HOB UID: 57013

Full description

A manor house belonging to the Archdeacons of Richmond is recorded at Easingwold in 1266 (2) and was demolished in either 1826 (2) or 1835 (1 & 3).

The Ordnance Survey Record Card (largely referencing Gills' description; see Ref. 3) gives the following summary:-

"Rectory House, variously called Easingwold Hall or Manor House, and belonging to the Archdeacons of Richmond, was demolished in 1835 and replaced by a new building. The only remains are the moat, garden walls, fish pond and a few very old Weymouth pines which surround the site. From 1290 to 1317 the Manor House "became very ruinous and greatly in need of repair" (1).

Gill provides a detailed account of the site in the 1852 publication Valis Eboracensis (3):-

“[The Manor] stood at the foot of the hill to the east of the Church, and gave place to the present very unadorned farm-house, about 1835. Nothing now indicates its ancient dignity but the garden walls, the fish pond, and a few very old Weymouth pines. These trees are fine specimens, and three hundred years ago the Hall was surrounded with them, the approach towards it being through a long serpentine avenue. On the principal gateway were two lions couchant. The Court or inner area appears to have been on the south east, and the plot of ground now built upon, extending to what was lately the site of the bathing-house, comprised the gardens or pleasure grounds, enclosed by a moat or ditch communicating with the upper part of the fish pond, and were called "the Paradise."

The house itself was an irregular structure, with several wings supported by buttresses, and surrounded by a parapet. The front door opened into a spacious entrance hall, the walls and ceiling of which, were ornamented with various devices. The dining-room was lofty and spacious, it occupied the whole of the south wing. The walls were richly empanelled with black oak, on the interior squares of which were beautiful paintings. In this room, behind the ceiling or casement, was discovered the perfect skeleton of a cat in a sitting posture, whose imprisonment may, no doubt, go far to account for the mysterious noises which at one time alarmed the inmates, and caused the apartment to be designated as the "haunted room ;" though there was a tradition of a poor boy, flogged to death by a not very remote proprietor, which gave the like ill repute to a little room adjoining the kitchen and near the entrance to the cellar, as well as of a victim to ecclesiastical cruelty, under the name of discipline, in earlier days, who was buried beneath a large stone in the adjoining ground, called after his name, ''Gregory's stone," to the present day.

The fish ponds are at present altogether neglected. During the time of the Salvins and the Vavasours, who occupied the manor as lessees, they were kept in beautiful order, and well stored with fish. The pond is fed by a spring about one hundred yards distant, in the ascent of the adjoining field. It is a perpetual fountain, unaffected by the longest drought. On the island in the centre stood an ornamented dove-cote, and round the exterior were two rows of large pines, forming a rich and shady bower. The grounds were interspersed with large spreading trees, shrubs, and plants, which the hand of time and the neglect of man has allowed to go to decay, and the precints of the fallen pile as well as its own humbled remnants are now only a monument " Of this world's passing pageantry."

Further information about the manor is provided on the Yorkshire Archaeological Society Record Card (3; largely drawn from Cowling's 1967 History of Easingwold and the Forest of Galtres):-

"Archdeaconry manor of Easingwold created in 1266 and held by the Archdeacons of Richmond. A manor house, also known as the Old Hall, or Rectory House, was situated at the foot of Church Hill on the north side of Uppleby road. Described as in good condition in 1281, it had fallen into disrepair by 1317. It may be the royal guest-house of manor recorded earlier in n 1201 and 1220. (The manor was held by the King in Domesday, and lay within the bounds of the royal Forest of Galtres. In pre-Conquest, held by Earls of Northumbria. In the 17th century the manor was in the possession of the
Driffield family, and was described as a rectory house having two barns, a dovecote and an oxhouse. A walled garden, or "Paradise", was added at about this time, together with an avenue of trees and a fishpond. The gardens were enclosed by a moat or ditch according to Gill. The Old Hall was demolished in 1826 and a farmhouse built on the site . Garden survived until 1879; remains of fishpond still visible".

<1> Ordnance Survey, Various, Ordnance Survey Record Card, 4139 (Card Index). SNY1.

<2> Yorkshire Archaeological Society, 1977 - 1980, Yorkshire Studies Card, SE57SW6 (Card Index). SNY2.

<3> 1852, Vallis Eboracensis, p94-95 (Monograph). SNY1530.

Sources and further reading

Provide feedback for this record

Search results generated by the HBSMR Gateway from exeGesIS SDM Ltd.