Castlestead

George Metcalfe in 1853, before his wedding, had set his heart on Castlestead, a farm half a mile up the riverside from his mill at Glasshouses. "Castlestead I have wanted all my life, Castlestead I must have. For Castlestead I will give any money, any money."

Castlestead was said to be the site of a Roman camp and this is shown on OS maps. In 1999 a local group surveyed the adjacent field but found no Roman traces. It may be that construction of the house overlay the camp.

John Yorke of Bewerley also wanted Castlestead but on 5 May 1853, after some doubtful dealing, the price of £900 plus £500 for the weir rights was agreed with George Metcalfe. There were problems with the contract and the transaction was not agreed until 26 December 1860, on George Metcalfe's 34th birthday.

Work started on building George's dream home in April 1861, the architect being William Reid Corson of Manchester. Surprisingly stone from John Yorke's quarry below Crocodile Rock was used for the house. The family moved into their new home in May 1862 when it was barely finished. Incidentally this was the year the railway was opened.

A year earlier, convinced that he would be the eventual owner, George Metcalfe had employed Messrs Major of Knowsthorpe, Leeds, to start laying out the gardens, making terraces and planting shrubs. To maintain them he engaged George Gray Watson who had been a gardener at Ripley Castle.

Plans for an iron lattice bridge were drawn up to cross the river to the house, providing a carriage way from the mill. The bridge was 100 feet long and constructed by Messrs Joicey of Newcastle. The girders were transported from Newcastle by rail but unfortunately one girder was hurled from the truck on a bridge in Gateshead into the street below. No one was injured but construction was delayed. The girders were brought to Glasshouses siding. During assembly of the bridge a girder broke away and ended up broken in the river. Eventually the bridge was completed at a cost of £700.

In his book on Nidderdale published in 1863 William Grainge described the new house. "On the north or entrance front is an open arched porch; and over the Entrance Hall a tower, having at one angle a turret staircase, the slated spire of which is surmounted by a handsome vane. The east or Terrace front is embellished with bay windows rising through two stories between which are the lofty arched and coupled windows of the staircase. The south front looks upon the flower garden and the ground along the bank of the river is tastefully laid out with walks and planted with shrubs, which in the course of a few years will make this the most charming spot in the vale of the Nidd."

The house was given a water-supply from the mill and in 1865 gas was also piped in. Between 1867 and 1877 outhouses were added - a vinery, stable extension, cowhouse, joiner's shop, archway and walls, iron gate and a billiard room over the coach-house.

The Primitive Methodist Sunday Schools were allowed to hold their annual festival or treat at Castlestead - they walked in procession via Harefield led by the Band. After hymns, etc. in the gardens they returned to Pateley for tea. In 1876 all people in the neighbourhood were invited and there were fireworks in the evening.

Following George's death in 1898 Annie his second wife found the house too big and in 1902 moved out. The businesses were in trouble at this time and three years later the bank had still not sold the house. Three years later a Mr Biddell bought the house on the understanding Adeline and John Metcalfe would run it as a hotel. Adeline died in 1915, just before the official bankruptcy.

Castlestead was finally sold by the mortgagees to William Gaunt, a Bradford millionaire who owned the Majestic Hotel in Harrogate. In 1914 it became a boarding school. When Mr Gaunt became bankrupt in 1920, the Barnes family turned it into a hydropathic establishment (= modern health farm). It later became a private house again and during the Second World War officers were billeted in it and then children from Hull Sailors' Orphanage.

Caslestead is now split into flats.

Information from:

Eileen Burgess. "A Most Conspicuous and Useful Family"

William Grainge. Nidderdale

Nidderdale Museum Society. The Book of Nidderdale.

Harry Speight. Upper Nidderdale.

Type

Garden

Purpose

Ornamental

Principal Building

Domestic / Residential

Period

Post Medieval (1540 to 1901)

Survival

Extant

Civil Parish

Bewerley