Nunnington Hall


Nunnington Hall is a country house situated in the English county of North Yorkshire. The river Rye, which gives its name to the local area, Ryedale, runs past the house, flowing away from the village of Nunnington. A stone bridge over the river separates the grounds of the house from the village. Above, a ridge known as Caulkley's Bank lies between Nunnington and the Vale of York to the south. The Vale of Pickering and the North York Moors lie to the north and east. Nunnington Hall is owned, conserved and managed as a visitor attraction by the National Trust.
The first Nunnington Hall was mentioned in the thirteenth century and the site has had many different owners. They include William Parr, 1st Marquess of Northampton, Dr Robert Huicke, Richard Graham, 1st Viscount Preston, the Rutson family and the Fife family. The present building is a combination of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century work. Most of the building seen today was created during the 1680s, when Richard Graham, 1st Viscount Preston, was its owner.

History

In the medieval period, the land belonged to the wealthy St Mary's Abbey in York. Nunnington takes its name from a nunnery, likely in the present location of Nunnington Hall, which existed prior to the Norman Conquest before being dissolved around 1200. According to the Domesday Book, the manor of Nunnigtune in the 11th century included Stonegrave, Ness, Holme and Wykeham.
William Parr, 1st Marquess of Northampton, lord of the manor of Nunnington and brother of queen consort Catherine Parr, built the oldest parts of the surviving house of Nunnington, which now form part of the west front. Following the forfeiture of the estate in 1553, Nunnington was again subject to let. One of the tenants was Dr Robert Huicke, who was physician to both Catherine Parr and Elizabeth I. Dr Huicke was to be the one to tell the Queen that she would never have children. Huicke never lived at Nunnington however and the estate was managed by stewards. The sub-lease was granted to Thomas Norcliffe in 1583 and the family made many alterations over the next 60 years.
In 1603, George Watkins and others were granted a lease of the manor for 31 years. After 25 years, however, it was granted to Edward Ditchfield and others of the City of London, who sold it the same year for £3,687 to John Holloway who held the manor in 1630. By 1655 the manor had been sold for £9,500 by Humphrey Thayer to Ranald Graham, a merchant of Lewisham. Ranald was succeeded by his nephew Sir Richard Graham of Netherby, who was created Viscount Preston in 1681. He was attainted in 1689 for attempting to join James II in France and his lands and property were confiscated, but later returned after he was pardoned. He was succeeded by his son and heir Edward, the 2nd Viscount and he in turn by his son Charles, 3rd and last Viscount Preston. Charles' heirs on his death in 1739 were his aunts, Mary Graham and Catherine, Lady Widdrington, who were granted joint possession of the manor of Nunnington in 1748. Mary died unmarried and Lady Widdrington left her estates to Sir Bellingham Graham, Bt., of Norton Conyers. The property then descended in the Norton Conyers Graham family until 1839, when it was sold to William Rutson of Newby Wiske, the son of William Rutson of Allerton Lodge.
The hall was inherited in 1920 by Rutson's great-niece Margaret Rutson, who had married Ronald D'Arcy Fife. They undertook a major renovation of the property in the 1920s using the architect Walter Brierley. Margaret bequeathed Nunnington Hall, much of its contents, and its gardens to the National Trust upon her death in 1952, along with £25,000 for the upkeep of the property.
The Hall stands within of organically managed grounds, with the main walled garden lying to the south of the building. The Walled Garden includes lawns, orchards, formal rose beds, mixed borders, a Tea Garden, and an Iris Garden. The orchards are managed as wildflower meadows containing flowers such as cowslip, primrose, snake's head fritillary, buttercup and camassia all growing below the fruit trees of which most are traditional Ryedale varieties. Another feature of the gardens are the resident peacocks. On 10 June 2007 Bluey, head of the peacock family, died under suspicious circumstances.

Interior

The Stone Hall

Today visitors enter by a modest entrance and porch to the Stone Hall. This west-facing room is in the oldest part of the building and it dates from the sixteenth century. On the walls you can see preserved animal skins as trophies, a collection of arms and armour and also some large brown-wood furniture.
This space comprises the National Trust's reception area, and it is lit by two high windows which face a gravelled area to the west.
Also on the west wall a modern, fireplace, in the style of the sixteenth century. The steps heading to the Dining Room in the south and the archway to a corridor in the east are of the same hand.
While this may have been the site of an earlier Great Hall, Lord Preston may have converted the Stone Hall to become a kitchen, alongside his own bedchamber, now dressed as a dining room.
The hunting trophies consist not only of animal hides and heads, elephant, rhinoceros, lion, tiger and antelope among them, but also of the souvenirs from World War II. Of the antelope specimen, which themselves cover one wall, both the giant eland and the tiny dik-dik are included. These all belonged to Colonel Fife. As well as a German tank crewman's helmet with its blast visor, Colonel Fife owned a Prussian Officer's helmet, flintlock pistols and a bayonet, all of these on display together in the Stone Hall.
As you walk around the room clockwise from the entrance, you see a centre table with carving and inlay which might be from the 1630s in Germany and behind it an English press of oak. Against the south wall is a long and tall settle made of panels recycled from the seventeenth century.

The Dining Room

The room used by the Fife family for dining is not part of the visitor's tour of this property and so the second room in their route has been dressed as an Edwardian dining room. The paint colour, a dark turquoise, survives from the 1920s, when Colonel Fife had this as his smoking room. More than two hundred years before the first Lord Preston had this as his chief bedroom, and added a new fireplace, panelling and some very early window sashes.

Pictures

  • Attributed to Charles d'Agar, Edward, 2nd Viscount Preston and his son Charles, 3rd Viscount Preston
A picture of the son and grandson of the 1st Viscount Preston, bought for display at Nunnington Hall by local supporters of the National Trust. Both of these sitters were heirs to Nunnington Hall, and both died in early life. The title Viscount Preston was lost on the death of Charles Graham in 1739. He left Nunnington Hall to his aunts Catharine, Lady Widdrington and Mary. The fine rococo frame has bounded this portrait for more than a century, but may have been designed for a mirror.
Purchased by the trust in January 2010 through the generosity of the Miss Mary Lawn Simpson Bequest and other gifts and bequests
  • In the manner of Giovanni Paolo Pannini,, ''Capriccio with Ruins''

    Mezzotints

In 1974 Miss Kathleen Cooper-Abbs gave an extensive and fine collection of mezzotints to the National Trust, which displayed some in the Dining Room at Nunnington Hall. These are prints of the eighteenth century after Joshua Reynolds.

Ceramics, metalwork and furniture

The fireplace mantel and dining table are set with a part of a dinner service from the eighteenth century. This Imari service from China carries the coat of arms of the Pitt family. Rococo candlesticks by J.Cafe in 1756, knives, also of the mid-eighteenth century and with pistol grips and a 1794 cake basket sit amongst the dinner service. Finally, two glass and plate silver claret jugs complete the display.
A Meissen set, with six flower decoration coffee cups and saucers, covers the side table. A coffee pot alongside is dated 1765, and was made by Priest of London. There is also a creamer of 1803 presented alongside.
A sideboard in the Sheraton style dates from the late eighteenth century. One side drawer front opens to reveal a wine keeping box lined with lead, and the other contains press-drawers for linen. On the sideboard two 1888 sauceboats reflect the late nineteenth-century taste for a revival of Georgian styles. There are also two knife boxes with cutlery of a mixture of dates, from around 1750 to the early nineteenth century. A pair of scissor-shaped candle snuffers of silver bears a crest of the Rutson family which owned Nunnington Hall.
A card table of around 1750 and made from mahogany stands between the south facing windows in this room, and a pier glass of the late eighteenth century with a giltwood frame hangs above it.

Lord Preston's room

In the French style of the period the bedchamber remained a place for entertaining guests in an open, public way. A withdrawing room provided a measure of privacy and so Viscount Preston annexed his bedroom with this small chamber to the west.

Pictures

  • English, late seventeenth-century ceiling painting in panels. Arms of Viscount Preston and his wife, Lady Anne Howard, the daughter of the Earl of Carlisle.
These panels join the two family crests in one work. They include family mottoes and lie within a clouded background bordered with gold seraphim. This style of painting is also found on funerary hatchments.
  • English, nineteenth century. Arms of William Rutson,. Oval, watercolour.
This Rutson bought Nunnington in 1839 from Sir Bellingham Graham. His motto means 'judge us by our actions'.
  • Anonymous. Richard Graham, 1st Viscount Preston,. Engraving
  • R. Sheppard after Sir Godfrey Kneller,. James II,. Engraving
Involved in the intrigue to restore James II's kingship, Richard Graham was imprisoned for his fidelity and was kept at the Tower of London. Upon his release, Preston spent the remainder of his life at Nunnington.
  • Photographs. Two framed photographs on a side desk show first, the west front without the beech surrounded courtyard and second, the drawing by Samuel Buck of either a plan for or a plan of Nunnington's seventeenth-century garden.