Gisburne Park (also known as Gisburn Park)

There is a plan of 1735 which shows the park (licensed 1365) laid out in a formal scheme. Roads would have been diverted around the perimeter to provide a broad plain on the axial approach from the south. This was to be laid out as a platooned avenue with mounts leading to a huge parade with a turnaround at the house. To the west a large new kitchen garden was to be made. To the east, a side valley was to become extended pleasure grounds with a straight canal at four levels along its bottom. Its sides were to be planted and there would be irregular paths throughout.

At the head of this valley to the south, where the valley turned, there was to be a mount, on axis with the canal and above an earthwork of slopes and ramps topped by a circular temple. Three vistas from the mount to the south were to become platooned avenues once out in the park. On the far side of the valley there was to be a cross of avenues, with the arm running towards the house filled with a geometrical pool. On the slope below this was to be an extraordinarily complex earthwork, intended to be seen from the small lawn on the north front of the house overlooking the river. A carriage drive was to run around the entire perimeter of the estate, including along part of the river's edge. Mostly it would have run between paling and a row of trees.

Two gate-lodges were added to the estate around 1800. Lord Ribblesdale was the owner of Gisburne Park in the mid-19th century. Ribblesdale allowed the public free access to the park grounds until 1880. At this time the park was closed to visitors due to ‘continual disorderly behaviour by drunken riff-raff'. In October 1995, Gisburne Park house, the Grade I Listed Georgian country home, was converted to an independent private hospital and rehabilitation centre. The hospital retains much of its original character and charm, including beautiful cornices mouldings and plaster work.

The following is from the Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest. For the most up-to-date Register entry, please visit the The National Heritage List for England (NHLE):

www.historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list

The Lister family acquired the Manor of Guisburne in 1614 but it was not until 1706 when Thomas Lister, MP for Clitheroe, inherited the family estates that the family moved from their seat at Arnoldsbiggin to Lower Hall, Guisburne. From 1726 to 1736, he replaced Lower Hall with a new mansion on a new site overlooking the confluence of the River Ribble with the Stock Beck, and in 1736-7, an adjacent stable block was built. Estate accounts also describe the building of park walls. In 1734, a plan of the estate was produced by Pierre Bourguignon, better known as the eminent engraver Hubert Gravelot whose entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography sets out his national significance. This plan is considered an accurate depiction of the early C18 landscape, which had its origins in the C17. It shows the mansion with its stable block and outbuildings, two large walled gardens to the north and north-west of the buildings, a large lawn immediately south of the house, with a deer park and cultivated fields beyond. Land to the north-west of the mansion on the far side of the Stock Beck is also depicted, in which lay the prominent remains of a Bronze Age bowl barrow. A painting attributed to Arthur Devis executed in 1738 shows the Lister family standing within the deer park with the new mansion and stables in the background.

The following year a plan by Lord Robert Petre (1713-42) depicts a proposed new design for a landscaped park at Gisburne; this includes woodlands and paths north of the house, water features, bridges, serpentine paths, a landscaped island in the River Ribble, terraces, avenues of trees, planting schemes and a formal garden. Petre's entry in the ODNB underlines his national importance as a major early C18 importer and collector of exotic plants. He also designed three garden schemes, that of his own home Thorndon Hall (Registered Grade II), Worksop Manor and this example at Gisburne Hall. It is unclear how much of his proposed design for Gisburne was implemented; a painting by Robert Griffier (c.1688-c.1750), produced after 1735 depicts much of Petre's design but it is thought that this painting is also likely to have been a prediction of the proposed design rather than evidence of its implementation. Overall, it is considered that Petre's planned design was not implemented at Gisburne, but that during the C18 some elements, such as the large walled garden, entry to the estate through a pair of lodges, the planting of a lime avenue and a new drive (the latter three features in different locations to those depicted on the plan) were partially implemented, and the existence of the plan did to a certain extent influence the subsequent development of the landscaped park.

In 1745, Thomas Lister was succeeded by his eldest son, Thomas (1723-61) who also took over his father's role as MP for Clitheroe. During the course of the 1750s, he constructed a number of buildings on the estate including a deer house (later Deer House Farm), a new stable and summerhouse (also known as The Temple). Estate ledgers indicate that in the garden a new pair of gates was purchased along with nets for cherry trees and yearly parcels of fruit trees, seeds, trees and pineapple plants. When Thomas Lister died in 1761 his nine-year-old son, Thomas (1752-1826), later Lord Ribblesdale and MP for Clitheroe, inherited the estate. Improvements at Gisburne Park continued with the construction in 1762 of the Chinese Bridge and Hen House (later Keeper's Cottage); in 1771-2 kennels were built to the west of the house and in 1776 the original drive was succeeded by a new drive running through the valley of the Stock Beck, entered through a new entrance flanked by lodges. The walled garden to the west of the hall was also enlarged to the Petre design in the mid-C18. Thomas Lister toured Spain and Portugal in 1784 and was influenced by the practice there of raising trees in nurseries. It is thought that he constructed a tree nursery on Coppy Hill during the 1780s and estate records indicate that a great number of trees were subsequently raised on the estate.

A plan and survey of Gisburne Park in 1812 by Francis White, depicts the development of the landscape since 1734. It shows that the park had been extended south of the mansion, new boundaries erected, an avenue of trees aligned on Pendle Hill had been planted, the walled garden north of the house had been replaced by a much larger walled garden west of the stable which is divided into two with a probable hothouse in each part and the tree nursery labelled 'Great Nursery' on Coppy Hill had been constructed. A map of 1817, possibly by Gisburn resident John Greenwood, depicts a similar landscape to that of 1812, but does not include land beyond Stock Beck, suggesting that this was no longer regarded as part of the park. After Lord Ribblesdale's death in 1826, he was succeeded by his son, Thomas and after his death in 1832, the mansion and park was leased. The lease advert describes the deer park with its wild white cattle and stock of deer, pleasure grounds including flower and kitchen gardens with hot houses and the tenant's responsibility to maintain the game and sporting rights of the estate. The estate remained tenanted throughout most of the C19 and First and Second Ordnance survey editions show little change; new stables were erected but the most significant alteration was the construction in 1892 of the railway line from Gisburn to Hellifield through the southern part of the park. It is said locally that the line was built in a tunnel to reduce the noise and distress from trains to Lord Ribblesdale's horses. In 1895, the then Lord Ribblesdale regained possession of the Gisburne estate, but part was sold on his death in 1927. In 1943, the remaining estate was sold to the Hindley family and in 1995 Gisburne Hall and adjacent land was sold and converted to a private hospital and rehabilitation centre leading to the construction of a new hospital building to the west of the hall. Today (2011) an equestrian centre is run within the park and Deer House Farm and its environs have been developed into Ribblesdale Holiday Park.

Type

Park

Purpose

Ornamental

Principal Building

Health And Welfare

Survival

Extant

Hectares

69.3

Civil Parish

Gisburn