Toulston Lodge park and garden

Ownership

During the sixteenth century the Fairfax family owned the manor of Toulston and Sir Thomas Fairfax built Toulston Hall in 1603. It is presumed that Toulston Lodge, lying some 1.4km south of the Hall, within ‘Towlston Common’ was associated with it and under the same ownership, when the Fairfax or Barwick families were lords of the manor, through to the mid-eighteenth century (see 3.2). However, with the demise and demolition of Toulston Hall the pattern of ownership of Toulston Lodge changed. From the mid-eighteenth century there was a succession of owners and times when the property was let to tenants, or unoccupied, but determining owners as opposed to tenants is problematic. It would seem its location and communication links to Tadcaster and York, its country sporting amenities for fishing, shooting and hunting within the Bramham Moor and Badsworth Hunt, made it a desirable property.

Peregrine Wentworth Esq. (1722-1809), Registrar of the West Riding of Yorkshire, moved to Toulston Lodge in about 1760and lived there for over 40 years. During this time he was married to Mary (d1797), daughter of Ralph Assheton Esq.Peregrine also owned Fairfax House in York from 1792. The Wentworths were close friends of the Brooksbank family wholived at nearby Healaugh Hall and many social visits are recorded in Philippa’s diary (THS 03-D-02) in the years between 1782 and 1796. A history by Gulielma Riccalton(THS 05-FE-13 1a & TGSL), whose family sometimes lived at Toulston Lodge and farmed the surrounding land, recalls that Peregrine used Toulston Lodge during the hunting season. Hewas a patron of sports, such as hunting, shooting and cock fighting and trained racehorses.

Following Peregrine’s residence at the hall it was used as an inn (Riccalton, TGSL). It was put up for sale in 1817 (Leeds Intelligencer, 29 September 1817) and when its contents and farm stock were sold earlier that year it was the residence of Thomas Duncombe Esq. at that time (Leeds Intelligencer, 31 March 1817).

William Prest Esq. (1771-1836), a merchant and former mayor of Leeds in 1816, moved to Toulston Lodge after holding that office (Wilson 1971, 229). William is recorded at ToulstonLodge in 1821 (Baines 1822, 651) and in 1823-4 still noted as the occupier, when the recently repaired property with sixty-seven acres of land are advertised to let (Leeds Mercury, 13 September 1823; 10 January 1824).

In the following years it is not certain who owned ToulstonLodge. In May 1826 it is noted as ‘unoccupied’ (Cary 1826, 965), but by September (Leeds Intelligencer, 14 September 1826) General Harris is living there. Gulielma Riccalton(TGSL) records her family living at Toulston Lodge in 1828. They moved to nearby Toulston Farm to make way for GeneralHarris but continued to farm the surrounding land and parkland. Hon. General Harris and his wife resided at ToulstonLodge in 1828-9 (Cary 1828, 974; Pigot 1829). Gulielma (ibid) notes that he had the house, stables and gardens and General Harris’ wife laid out part of the gardens assisted by Captain Hay. He was the Duke of Wellington’s aide-de-camp and Wellington’s visit was noted as ‘a great event in the history of Toulston’ (ibid).

Advertisements to let continue in the local newspapers to June 1830, but from then onwards Toulston Lodge was a seminary and ladies’ boarding school until at least 1847, run by a succession of headmistresses (Mrs Storry, Miss Charnock, Misses Tasker and Walker, Medames Muller and La Planche), who advertised in the local press. It then became a boys’boarding school for thirty pupils, run by headmaster and farmer John Elsworth (1851 Census).

During this time James Brown Esq. (1814-1877) was lord of Toulston manor (Kelly’s Directory 1881, 876) and owned the land surrounding Toulston Lodge (1846 tithe map and award NA, IR 30/43/392 & NA, IR 29/43/392). James was part of a Leeds family of merchants, who made their fortune in manufacturing and making cloth. He died a bachelor and his three sisters inherited his estates. The youngest Ann Rhodes Williams Brown married in 1839 James William Scarlett (Kelley, 2003). It was thus that Toulston manor descendedthrough the Scarlett family (Brabner 1895, 28).

Sir Frederick Acclom Milbank (1820-1898) 1st Baronet, MP for the North Riding of Yorkshire, is recorded at ToulstonLodge in 1858 (Durham Chronicle, 07 May and 30 April) and in 1864 (LULSC, YAS/MD363/119D). He was married to Alexina Harriet, daughter of Sir Alexander Don.

By 1861 the census shows that the only occupants of ToulstonLodge were Jonathan Gibson and his wife. Jonathan is recorded as a gardener. But from 1862 and dates through to 1872 (e.g. Leeds Intelligencer, 19 July; 1871 census; Wilson’s Gazetteer for 1870-72 http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/13825 accessed 18 October 2017) Richard H. (or S.) Carroll (1814-1879) and his wife Louisa were residing there. Richard was a West Riding of Yorkshire MP and juror at York Assizes through the 1860s.

In 1872 Thomas Austinine (or Austin) Grimston (1835-1913)moved to Toulston Lodge with his wife Emily and is still recorded there in 1881 during which time six of his children were born at the Lodge (1881 Census). He was a prominentfigure at nearby Clifford, where he built a flax mill and the Church of St. Clifford.

Henry Herbert Riley-Smith (formerly Riley) (1863-1911) on jointly inheriting the John Smith’s Tadcaster Brewery with his brother Frank, from his maternal uncle William, took the name Smith as a condition of the inheritance. In preparation for his marriage he bought Toulston Lodge and the estate around 1886 (HRS, Notes). Henry married Annie in late 1886, daughter of Ralph Heaton of Edgbaston, who was proprietor of the Birmingham Mint. It passed to his son William Riley-Smith (1890-1954), chairman of John Smith’s Tadcaster Brewery and High Sheriff of Yorkshire. He married Beryl Winifred Stansfield Tennant in 1913. Toulston Lodge, its gardens and parkland were sold in 1954 to West Riding County Council for development for a new Tadcaster County Secondary School(see 3.4). William Henry Douglas Riley-Smith (1914-1981) sold the residual part of the estate in 1979.

Key owners responsible for major developments of the designed landscape and dates of their involvement:

Peregrine Wentworth (1760 - 1809)

Henry Herbert Riley-Smith (1866 - 1909)

William and Beryl Riley-Smith (1911 - 1948)

14th and 15th Century

In Domesday Toulston is mentioned as ‘Togleston’ (or ‘Ogleston’) and appears with entries of ‘Oglestorp’ (Oglethorp)and ‘Neuueton’ (Newton Kyme]. The parish of Newton consisted of the two manors of Newton and Towlston(Toulston); hence the modern civil parish is Newton Kymecum Toulston.

The deserted village of Toulston is recorded as ‘Tolliston’ in the 1379 Poll Tax, when thirty persons are mentioned (NRHE: 54915). It has been suggested that it was depopulated to make way for the building of Toulston Hall (NRHE: 54907), built by Sir Thomas Fairfax in 1603 (Speight 1902, 318-9). John Speed’s 1610 map does not show any settlement, the Hall or the Lodge, but a 1611 survey for the Earle of Nothumberlande(WSRO, PHA 3422) depicts the house south of ‘ToulestonLordshippe’ in an area of land claimed by Sir Thomas Fairfaxeas part of his manor of Tolston. A ‘conney warren’ is labelled adjacent to the house, suggesting it may have functioned as a gamekeeper’s lodge at this time. There is a network of surrounding roads, one directly adjacent, running east-west from Bramham to Tadcaster and another running north, which would have given access to Toulston and its Hall and Newton Kyme.

Jeffreys’ 1771 map does depict the village named ‘Touston’ and the Lodge. A more detailed survey for George William Fairfax in 1760 shows Toulston Hall, sparse village buildings and their associated enclosed named fields plots, with ToulstonLodge located some distance to the south within ‘TowlstonCommon’. By 1817 when the manor of Toulston was being sold (The York Herald and General Advertiser, 27 September 1817), Toulston Lodge is described as the ‘Mansion House’ and there is no mention of the Hall, hence it was probably demolished by then. By 1849 the 6” Ordnance Survey map marks the ‘Site of Toulston Hall’ and the village reduced, described by 1881 (Kelly, 876) as a hamlet with three farms.There is good survival of earthworks at the Hall site with its associated gardens, which overlie the village earthworks and are a scheduled monument (NHLE: 1017922).

16th and 17th Century

We have some record of the owners of Toulston Hall after Sir Thomas Fairfax (c.1560-1640) built it about 1603. Sir William Fairfax (1610-1644), following his marriage to Frances,daughter of Sir Thomas Chaloner of Guisborough, Cleveland,lived at Toulston Hall. In 1636 he succeeded to the Fairfax family estates at Newton Kyme and Steeton and took up permanent residence at Steeton Hall in 1640. He sold Toulstonmanor to his friend Sir Robert Barwick, who held the manor, Hall and Lodge (Bruce 1846, 12 & 501). A stone records the date 1653 and initials R.B.V.B. (Robert Barwick and Ursula Barwick) (Speight 1902, 110).

Sir Robert Barwick(e) (1589-1660), Recorder of Doncaster and York, married Ursula (1607-1682) daughter of Walter Strickland of Boynton Hall. She was known as ‘The Lady Barwick’. Their only son Robert died swimming in the River Wharfe in 1666, so their daughter Frances (1630-1684), whowas born at Toulston Hall, became sole heiress. She married Henry Fairfax (1631-1688), 4th Lord Fairfax of Cameron (Esq.of Oglethorpe, the adjacent manor) in 1652. Under a settlement in 1685, their son Rev. Henry Fairfax (1659-1708) was given his maternal grandfather’s estates and so Toulston manor came back into the ownership of the Fairfax family. Henry married Anne, daughter of Richard Harrison of South Cave and their son Henry (bap. 1685-1759) inherited Toulston. His brother George William Fairfax (1724-1787), part of a branch of the Fairfax family that had settled in America, inherited Toulstonmanor in 1759.

Speight (1902, 319) describes Toulston Lodge as a ‘dower-house’ of the Fairfax family, but that attribution possibly goes back to the time of Lady Ursula Barwick, who on the death of her son in 1666, probably moved to Toulston Lodge taking the family coat of arms with her (Gyles, 2010). Toulston Lodge retains the stone carving on its south wall of Sir Robert and Lady Ursula’s marital arms – Barwick impaling Strickland. A1611 map (PHA, 3422) depicts the Lodge, but an even earlier date is suggested by a coin of Queen Elizabeth I, (reigned from 1558) found in the grounds in front of the house. The Hearth Tax of 1672 records ‘The Lady Barwicke’ with 15 hearths, suggesting a house of considerable size, which possibly is Toulston Lodge rather than the Hall.

18th and 19th Century

A 1760 map (THS) shows Toulston Lodge within ‘TowlstonCommon’ with the house and two adjacent buildings laid around an enclosed yard, which has the appearance of a farmstead at this time. The enclosure place-name ‘Warren Close’ just north of the lodge reinforces the suggestion of a gamekeeper’s lodge, managing rabbit warrens on the common. The house had a semi-circular south front with an east wing and another building to the west and longer range to north. One building was probably stables, as Speight (1902, 320) mentionsa date stone inscribed E. C. 1729 found in the old stables that were pulled down c.1887. Annotations on the map in pencil (added post-1760) by the house, label it ‘house & garden’, but there is no detailed depiction of the latter. Other sketched pencil lines show the house site enclosed in a rectilinear plot, possibly that coinciding with those on the 1846 tithe map (NA, IR 30/43/301).

Jeffreys’ 1771 map shows the wider context of ‘ToustonLodge’ within a large area of moorland, which was part of Bramham Moor, surrounded by a network of roads, although only some are shown compared to the 1611 map. This setting, lying some distance south of Toulston Hall, suggests it may have originally been a hunting lodge for the Hall, establishing a link between these two sites.

The boundaries between Newton Kyme and Tadcaster were contested in a prolonged litigation that began in 1654 and was not settled until 1809 (Speight 1902, 321-328). It resulted in Toulston Lodge and its lands being divided between the two parishes. The details of the dispute do provide some useful information about the landscape around Toulston Lodge. Part of the dispute involved Lord Fairfax’s coney warren, which may have been ‘Wise Warren’ or ‘Toulston Warren’ and whether it lay within Newton Kyme or Tadcaster parish. Parts of the common were enclosed in 1790 and corn was grown on land in front of Toulston Lodge and tithes collected there in 1797. The dispute records also mention a bowling green, belonging to Toulston Lodge, lying some distance to the southwest from the front of it (Speight 1902, 327). This provides some evidence that the lodge had some garden featureassociated with it in the late eighteenth century, although the date of its construction is uncertain. Bowling greens were popular by the mid-seventeenth century into the earlyeighteenth century and therefore it may have been created by the Barwick or Fairfax families.

The estate of Toulston was put up for sale in 1817 (The York Herald and General Advertiser, 29 September 1817) and described:

The very desirable freehold of Toulston, near Tadcaster consisting of the Manor of Toulston, the Mansion House, called Toulston Lodge, late the residence of Peregrine Wentworth Esq.and three farms containing together 540 acres or upwards of arable and grass land’.....The estate is very well wooded.....and situated in the centre of the Bramham Moor Hunt

Numerous newspaper advertisements to let Toulston Lodge followed and variously describe sixty-seven acres of land, laid mainly to grass, a capital mansion with requisite outbuildings, stables, two coach houses, gardens, plantation and paddock, with rights of fishing and shooting in the manor of Toulston.Although the nature of these gardens and exact location of theplantation is not known, they were probably created under the tenure of Peregrine Wentworth, during the period from 1760 to 1809.

A sketch of Toulston Lodge dated 1828 in Speight (1902, 317) and a copy held by THS (08-P-25a) shows some detail of the house at this time and some aspects of its surrounding gardens. It has a drive and lawns in front of the house with mature trees flanking it. On the western side, where a service wing is attached to the house, an extended wall suggests some enclosed courtyard or garden.

The 1846 tithe map (NA, IR 30/43/301) shows Toulston Lodge with a service wing to the northeast and complex of surrounding buildings. A sweeping drive from the Tadcaster to Bramham road (Toulston Lane) on the north side of the house, runs to the south front of house and loops back to the north side of the buildings. To the north a narrow woodland belt borders the road with another small woodland area along the eastern drive approach.

The Ordnance Survey 6” map, surveyed in 1846-7 and published in 1849 shows a fairly similar layout, but does notshow the two woodland areas, which may have been regarded as shrubbery, rather than woodland. It also shows some other elements of the quite modest gardens at this time, with small areas of woodland to the west and east of the house. The walled garden to the northeast of the house has orchard planting in its southern half with a central east-west path. The walled garden is unusually constructed of limestone and not brick, reflecting its abundance as a local resource. The date of its construction is not known and may be earlier than 1846.

Surrounding the house and gardens are rectilinear fields and to the south two are named ‘Park’ and ‘Far Park Close’, owned by James Brown and rented by Louisa Storry, who was school headmistress at Toulston Lodge. However, this parkland had reverted to arable at this time (1844 tithe award NA, IR 29/43/392). The 1849 6” Ordnance Survey map labels themwithin Tadcaster High Moor and a straight track leads south from the house site and stops. It coincides with an area, which later has a small enclosure, suggesting a horse paddock, or it may be the site of the former bowling green.

19th Century

During the period 1886-1913 the gardens were at the height of their development. During this time the gardens and parkland underwent a major redesign by Henry Herbert Riley-Smith and his wife Annie. Her diary of 1887 records changes at that time(HRS, Notes). A watercolour dated 1896 shows the view to the south façade of the house with a lawn in front flanked by trees and mature woodland behind the house (HRS, watercolour).

Simeon Marshall (d1910) was involved in laying out, or developing, the gardens at Toulston Lodge (Gardener’s Chronicle 1910, Ser3, Vol 48, 169, Desmond 1994, 470). He was a gardener for James Backhouse & Son nurseries in York, joining them in 1861. Although the exact date of his involvement at Toulston Lodge is not known, it is likely to coincide with this period of major change under the tenure of Henry Herbert Riley-Smith from 1886. These changes to the parkland and gardens are seen on Ordnance Survey maps between 1891 and 1906.

The house was also extended and its interior extensively refurbished, by architects Bromet and Thorman of Tadcaster and Leeds (HRS, photographs). They also produced a plan to build ten almshouses on the Toulston estate, which shows three blocks around a gated quadrangle, enclosing a garden. It had an ornate library over an arched carriageway through one of the blocks (The Builder 1899, 110 and Figure). The proposed site for this in not known, but such an imposing building would have had a huge impact if built within the designed landscapeor its fringes, but it seems these proposals were never executed.

By 1891 (6” Ordnance Survey map surveyed 1891, published 1895) there is some attempt to landscape the area around the house. The gardens, primarily east of the house, expanded and developed a more informal layout with curved lawns and sinuous belts of tree plantings, encompassing the drive. In the area south of the house, formerly used as arable, trees were planted along the field boundaries, some forming small clumps with more trees scattered within the fields.

The surrounding road network changed since that depicted on the 1611 map, with the addition of Garnet Lane to the south and west. These encompassing roads, forming a loosely triangular area, somewhat restricted the later development of the designed landscape. To the southeast the turnpike road from Aberford to Tadcaster had a public house, the Beehive Inn, with adjacent rectilinear fields containing orchards.

By 1896 Ordnance Survey maps shows a large area south of the house stippled, denoting parkland, which by 1906 extendsto fill almost the entire area bounded by the roads. The former orchards adjacent to the Bee Hive Inn, now Highmoor Farm, are retained as arable fields, which continued into the early twentieth century. Large scale tree planting provided perimeter tree belts and scattered trees within the northeast area of the parkland. Tree clumps screened views to the farm and flankedthe newly created drive that swept across the parkland to the southeast to the Leeds Road. This new approach to the house accompanied the redesign and expansion of the gardens and pleasure grounds.

More space was created to the south front of the house to provide areas of formal lawns and a terrace with a curving ha-ha dividing the gardens from the parkland. Buildings to the west of the house were demolished and pleasure grounds with a sinuous path created. The woodland planting surrounding the house was enlarged.

The walled garden underwent a number of changes at this time. An east-west wall across its northern area, which divided an area of slip garden, was demolished and realigned further south, dividing the walled garden in half. A large, south facing glasshouse and conservatory, constructed across the centre supplemented the existing small glasshouses. The new conservatory overlooked what was to later develop into a flower and sunken rose garden, whilst the northern half was maintained as a productive kitchen garden. Beryl Riley-Smithmade improvements to the garden, including a rose garden(HRS, Notes). This was probably after William inherited Toulston in 1911 and their marriage in 1913, when he also created the polo field in the eastern half of the parkland.

20th Century

A few changes are seen on later Ordnance Survey maps to 1952. The field pattern around Highmoor Farm was modified, removing a field boundary to incorporate the strip of land into the parkland and area of the polo ground.

Major changes occurred when the West Riding County Council purchased Toulston Lodge and its grounds for £15,815, covering a total of sixty acres (24 hectares) in 1954, for a new Tadcaster County Secondary School (Yorkshire Post and Intelligencer 2 June 1950, Yorkshire Evening Post, 16 January 1954). A programme of building works ensued with the addition of large numbers of new buildings south of the house and re-landscaping in parts of the parkland to create sports facilities. Some of the buildings north of the house weredemolished, including the tall water tower. Tadcaster Grammar School, previously located in the centre of Tadcaster, was allocated the site at Toulston Lodge and moved permanently there in 1960.

The ha-ha was removed and buildings erected over the area spreading south into the parkland. The formal south lawn terrace by the house was re-landscaped. The northern half of the walled kitchen garden was surfaced for tennis courts, retaining its high stone walls on its northern and western sides. The central dividing hedge was removed and the wall with conservatory and glasshouse demolished. The southern enclosing high stone wall of the walled garden was reduced in height. The southern area of the former rose garden was re-landscaped, but the central circular pond was retained withsome areas of ‘crazy paving’ and stone steps.

The drive from Toulston Lane to the house was surfaced for a car park, but its alignment is retained in surfaced paths in the area of woodland and former pleasure grounds to the east of the house.

The parkland was divided in two, adding a new north-south woodland belt, separating the school sports facilities to the west from the grounds of Toulston Polo Club to the east. The polo grounds had originated in 1913 laid out by William Riley-Smith. The eastern area, managed to improve the turf for the polo club, removed the parkland drive to Leeds Road by 1964 and had a single-storey timber pavilion. The character of the northeastern area of the parkland changed as scattered trees were removed, but the area is still managed as pasture. The perimeter woodland shelterbelts surrounding the parkland retain some mature trees and the same footprint as when they were planted.

Detailed History contributed by Yorkshire Gardens Trust 2018

Civil Parish

Newton Kyme cum