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| Blackett of Wylam, baronets |
This post has been divided into two parts. This first part contains the introduction to the family and describes the many houses they owned at different times. Part two contains genealogical information about the different branches of the family.
From the mid 17th to the mid 19th centuries, the Blacketts were one of the leading mercantile families of Newcastle-on-Tyne and played an important part in the coal and lead mining industries of north-east England. Their rapid rise to wealth and their careers as landowners and merchant princes have recently been studied in considerable detail in the works by Finch and Purdue cited below, while the genealogical evidence has been very ably assembled by the authors of the website, The Blacketts of north-east England. The reader is referred to Finch's book for a more detailed assessment of the Blacketts as entrepreneurs, and for an exploration of their part in the business community of the north-east.
The family seem to trace their origins to the rather bleak moorland and sheep pasture of upper Weardale in County Durham, where in the Tudor period they had a farm at Woodcroft between Stanhope and Frosterley and were accounted minor gentry. By the late 16th century, Edward Blackett (1557-1627) and his brothers were farming at Shipley in Hamsterley, further down the valley, and in 1617 and 1618 Edward bought lands in the adjoining parish of Wolsingham and the Hoppyland estate in Hamsterley from Lord Eure of nearby Witton Castle. Edward married twice, and by his first wife, Jane Kirkhouse, he produced a son, William Blackett (1587-1648), with whom the genealogy in part 2 of this article begins, and two daughters. In about 1602 he married again, to Ann Lilburne, and had a further family. William was associated with his father in the purchase of Hoppyland, and as the eldest son must have had expectations of inheriting it outright, but his father's will favoured his widow and second family, and William had to be content with sharing Hoppyland with his married sister, Margaret Maddison. Although sometimes described as 'of Hamsterley' in contemporary documents, William had moved before 1620 to Jarrow (Co. Durham) and later to Gateshead (Co. Durham), where he was a churchwarden in the 1630s. He married, by 1611, the daughter of another Weardale farmer, and they had at least three sons. The eldest of these, Christopher Blackett (1613-75), inherited his father's lands and saw service in the Civil War as an officer in the Royalist army, while the younger sons, Edward (c.1615-67) and William (1621-80) - to whom I shall return - were apprenticed to merchants in Newcastle-on-Tyne.
Christopher Blackett (1613-75), married Alice (1609-63), the only daughter and heir of Thomas Fenwick (d. 1659) of Matfen (Northbld.) and inherited some property there in her right, but this was not the main Matfen estate which only came into the family by marriage in the 18th century. After Alice's death he married again, and although he was in his fifties and his children by Alice were already grown up, he produced a second family. His eldest son, William Blackett (c.1633-95), was apprenticed as a merchant in Newcastle-on-Tyne, and subsequently built a business trading with Sweden and Scotland. His life and career are fairly obscure, but he is said to have married 'a daughter of the Duc de Boys'. More recent historians have tended to discount this as a myth, but the woman to whom he was married at the time of his death was his second wife, so an earlier marriage to a foreign, perhaps Swedish or Dutch, lady remains possible; 'Duc de Boys' may be a corruption of a foreign name such as Du Bois or Boije. William inherited from his father the latter's share of the Hoppyland property at Hamsterley, and was able to buy back the other moiety. Surtees calls him 'mad, or something like it' and he seems to have retired to Hoppyland before his death. His widow inherited a life interest in his property and evidently remarried soon after his death; his brother John Blackett (1635-1707) disputed the will, with what result is not known.
John Blackett (1635-1707) was, like his brother, apprenticed to a Newcastle merchant. It was presumably his profits as a merchant that enabled him to invest in land, and he bought the manor of Wylam (Northumberland) in 1679 and expanded the estate in 1685. The purchase raised him into the landed gentry and he was High Sheriff of Northumberland in 1691-92. With the estate came the Wylam colliery, first developed by the monks of Tynemouth Priory in the 13th century, which was later to be significantly developed by the family and to become a major source of their wealth. The estate also included the building, then known as the Sporting House but later as Wylam Hall, which became the chief residence of this branch of the family in the 18th century. John was succeeded by his elder son, John Blackett (c.1680-1714) whose untimely death brought the Wylam estate to his infant son, John Blackett (1712-69), who was orphaned when his mother died in 1723. It is unclear what guardianship arrangements were put in place for him, but it may have been during his minority that the house at Wylam was improved. After coming of age he invested in the development of the Wylam coal mine and in 1748 laid a waggonway to convey the coal downstream for shipment to London. At the end of his life, John sold the Hoppyland property which had been in the family since 1618. John married twice and was succeeded in turn by three of his sons: John Blackett (1735-91), Thomas Blackett (1738-1800), and Christopher Blackett (1751-1829). John was unmarried, but may have had an illegitimate daughter, while Thomas, who was a merchant in Newcastle for most of his life, was twice married but had no children. Christopher, although the portrait of him as an old man suggests an emaciated and feeble figure, must actually have been one of the most dynamic personalities the family produced, for he crammed into his 78 years at least four diverse careers as merchant, postmaster, newspaper proprietor, landowner and coalowner, as well as holding important public offices. After he came into possession of the Wylam estate in 1800 he sought to modernise his mining operation by applying steam traction to the waggonway. Although his first attempt was unsuccessful, he subsequently commissioned the building of the first two practical steam locomotives in the world: Puffing Billy and Wylam Dilly, which were a formative influence on the career of the steam pioneer, George Stephenson, who was born at Wylam. Amongst his business endeavours, Christopher found time to father twelve children. He was succeeded by his eldest surviving son, Christopher Blackett (1787-1847), who moved his home from Wylam Hall to the more salubriously-located Oakwood House, Wylam. Like his father, he was a Whig in politics, although he opposed parliamentary reform which was a fairly central plank of Whig policy in the 1820s. He sat briefly as an MP for the notorious 'rotten borough' of Bere Alston in Devon in 1830-31, and again as MP for South Northumberland, 1837-41. Although he continued to manage the Wylam estate and colliery, he was much less engaged in business than his father.
Christopher was succeeded by his eldest son, John Fenwick Burgoyne Blackett (1821-56), who had a stellar career at Oxford - where he was president of the Oxford Union and held a Fellowship at Merton - before moving to London to forge a career as a political writer and politician. He was elected as Liberal MP for Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1852 and was immensely popular with his electors, and he was expected to have a high-flying career in parliament, but after just four years he was forced to retire due to exhaustion from 'over-work'. It seems likely that there was an underlying medical condition for he died soon afterwards in France, where he had gone to recover his health. He was unmarried and without issue, so the Wylam estate devolved on his brother, Edward Algernon Blackett (1824-73), who can have had no expectation of inheriting, and who had married the daughter of an Irish clergyman and settled in Ireland. He sold his Irish properties and moved back to Wylam in about 1859, but the family's connection with Ireland remained strong and their attachment to Wylam was weakening. Wylam Hall had been let since the 1830s, and after E.A. Blackett's death Oakwood was let too. His son and heir, Col. Edward Umfreville Blackett (1853-1920), was a career army officer, who served in India and elsewhere, and built a house called Barnagrotty in Co. Tipperary in the 1890s. He had no children by his first wife, but produced a son and two daughters by his second. The son, Christopher John Walter Blackett (1900-71) succeeded to the Wylam estate and lived in the village, but never occupied either of the main family houses, and since neither he nor his sisters ever married, the estate was finally sold after his death.
I promised above that I would return to Edward and William, the younger brothers of Christopher Blackett (1613-75), who were both apprenticed to merchants in Newcastle-on-Tyne. Edward Blackett (c.1615-67) became the representative of the Company of Merchant Adventurers at Amsterdam in the 1640s, and married a woman called Christian Hering, who was presumably Dutch. After many years living in Amsterdam, he returned to Newcastle in about 1652 with his family, but his descendants died out in the 18th century. William Blackett (1621-80) was likewise a Newcastle merchant. He is said to have achieved a notable coup early in his career when a storm dispersed a convoy of vessels bringing flax to England and it was feared many of them had been lost. William's vessel was the first to come safely to harbour and by riding hard to London he was able to sell his cargo at highly advantageous prices before other vessels struggled home and the market price of flax fell again. He was certainly highly entrepreneurial, and began investing his profits in land with lead and coal mines across Northumberland, Durham and Yorkshire, exploiting which added further to his wealth. It has been calculated that by the time of his death his net income was in excess of £6,000 a year. He was Mayor of Newcastle in 1666-67 and served as MP for the city, 1673-80. He was raised to a baronetcy in 1673, and in 1675 he bought Greyfriars House (later Newe House and then Anderson Place) which was by some way the largest house in Newcastle, especially after he added two large and architecturally up-to-date wings to it before his death in 1680. Sir William had eight children, six of whom survived him. It was said that his wealth at death was sufficient 'to provide for two eldest sons'; in other words to set up two of his sons for life. The beneficiaries were his eldest son, Sir Edward Blackett (1649-1718), 2nd bt., and his youngest son, Sir William Blackett (1657-1705), 1st bt., for whom a separate baronetcy was created in 1685; both men were wealthy enough to build large country houses and founded lineages to succeed them.
Sir Edward Blackett (1649-1718), 2nd bt., was a merchant in Newcastle and served as High Sheriff of Northumberland in 1679-80, but before his father's death his focus was already shifting to Yorkshire. He inherited much of his father's property there, and acquired further lands in the county through his first two marriages. In 1677 he bought Newby Park near Boroughbridge (Yorks WR), and between 1685 and 1693 he spent £32,000 on building a new house there on a grand scale, possibly to the designs of Sir Christopher Wren. He became MP for Ripon, 1689-90, and later for Northumberland (where he also had lands), 1698-1700. He was married three times altogether, but his surviving children all came from his second marriage. When he died in 1718 his title passed to his eldest son, Sir Edward Blackett (1682-1756), 3rd bt., who served as a naval officer in his father's lifetime. The 3rd baronet seems to have inherited Newby, but preferred to live at Hexham (Northbld), where he rented the Prior's House, which was extensively remodelled for him c.1736. His younger brother, John Blackett (1683-1750), was established as a merchant in Newcastle and at Rotterdam in his father's lifetime, and later occupied Newby Hall until it was sold to the Weddell family in 1748. It is not clear how much time he spent there, however, for he seems to have lived chiefly at Kensington (Middx) and Hampton Court (Middx), and he also bought an estate in the North Riding in 1729. When the 3rd baronet died without issue in 1756, his stepson inherited the lease of the Prior's House at Hexham, and the baronetcy devolved on John's eldest son, Sir Edward Blackett (1719-1804), 4th bt. In 1751 he married an heiress, Anne Douglas (1719-1805), whose father had bequeathed her the manor of West Matfen (Northumberland), but like his father he seems to have preferred the south of England to the north. He had lands at Thorpe (Surrey) from 1774, bought a house there in 1794, and built a smart new villa nearby c.1802. His son, Sir William Blackett (1758-1816), 5th bt., undertook an extensive Grand Tour in 1784-85, and like his father lived chiefly at Thorpe Lea House. His wife, who came from a Cambridgeshire family, bore him seven children, and he divided his property between his eldest surviving son, Sir Edward Blackett (1805-85), 6th bt., and his younger sons, Henry Collingwood Blackett (1808-56), who inherited the manor of Sockburn (Co. Durham) and built a new house there after coming of age; and John Charles Blackett (1813-96), who inherited Thorpe Lea, subject to his mother (who survived until 1859) having the right to live there for her lifetime. John Charles, who seems to have had a restless spirit, joined the Royal Navy and sold Thorpe Lea House to his mother in 1831. After leaving the navy in 1838, he emigrated to Australia and later moved to New Zealand, where he built a substantial house called Fairlawn. In the late 1850s, however, he returned to England, and his mother gave him Thorpe Lea House once more before her death, and he settled there for the rest of his life.
Sir Edward Blackett, the 6th baronet, inherited a large Northumberland estate, but only a very modest house. He commissioned Thomas Rickman to build a much bigger replacement, but later fell out with Rickman and took over the completion of the house to his own designs. He also employed John Dobson of Newcastle to build him a shooting box called Bonnyrigg Hall on moorland at the western end of the estate. Sir Edward was married four times, but all his children came from his first marriage to Julia Monck (1808-46) from Belsay Hall. She must have found the stylistic contrast between the severe Greek Revival of her parental home and the Gothic-Tudor extravagance of the new Matfen Hall striking enough. The Matfen estate descended to their eldest son, Maj-Gen. Sir Edward William Blackett (1831-1909), 7th bt., who lost a leg in the Crimea but continued his military career until 1881, and then passed to his son, Sir Hugh Douglas Blackett (1873-1960), 8th bt., who was the last of the family to occupy Matfen Hall as a family home. He was succeeded in the baronetcy in turn by three sons: Sir Charles Douglas Blackett (1904-68), 9th bt., who leased the house to the Cheshire Homes Charity for incurables; Sir George William Blackett (1906-94), 10th bt., and Sir Francis Hugh Blackett (1907-95), 10th bt., who all had smaller houses on the estate. The death of the 10th baronet closely coincided with the Cheshire Homes giving up lease on Matfen Hall, so his nephew, Sir Hugh Francis Blackett (b. 1955), 12th bt., had to decide what to do with the building. After much consideration he decided to restore the house and to convert it into an hotel, which opened in 1999. He and his wife managed the hotel themselves until 2020, when they sold it to a local hotel chain, which has made a further major investment in the property; they themselves continue to live at Halton Castle on the estate.
The youngest son of Sir William Blackett (d. 1680), 1st bt. was another William Blackett (1657-1705), who inherited much of his father's Durham and Northumberland property as well as Greyfriars House at Newcastle. He remained an important figure in the city of Newcastle, serving as Mayor twice and as its MP on four occasions, but his coal and lead mines gave him wider horizons. He was raised to a baronetcy in 1685 and purchased the Wallington estate in Northumberland from Sir John Fenwick in 1689. Wallington was probably intended to be an occasional shooting retreat rather than his permanent home, but he built a large quadrangular house there, which was developed into a country seat by his successors. Sir William and his wife, Julia Conyers, had a large family of ten children, but only two sons, one of whom died in infancy. He made generous bequests to his daughters which his estate was not really able to afford, with the result that his surviving son, Sir William Blackett (1690-1728), 2nd bt., who inherited both his property and his extravagant spending habits, ran rapidly into debt. A Tory in politics, the 2nd baronet was sympathetic to the Jacobite cause as a young man, and although he ultimately declined to join the 1715 uprising, he was regarded as a traitor to the cause by those who did, and untrustworthy by Hanoverian loyalists. He married Lady Barbara Villiers in 1725, but their brief union produced no children, and so when he died in 1728 his baronetcy became extinct and he left his property to his illegitimate daughter, Elizabeth Ord (1711-59), on condition that within twelve months she married his nephew, Walter Calverley (1707-77) - the son of his sister Julia - and that they took the name Blackett. These conditions were complied with, but the resulting marriage was not happy and produced only one child, a daughter who died in her teens. Walter inherited his father's baronetcy and estate in Yorkshire in 1749, and was generally known as Sir Walter Calverley Blackett. He continued to play a prominent part in Newcastle politics, serving as MP for the city from 1734-77 and being Mayor no less than five times. In 1750 Chancery ordered the sale of the Wallington estate in order to meet the accumulated debts on the property, but Sir Walter was able to buy it back at the resulting auction for £70,000. Perhaps to meet this, and to finance a major programme of investment in the house and grounds, he sold his paternal estate at Calverley (Yorks WR) in 1755 for £112,000. When he died in 1777 he bequeathed the Wallington estate to his sister's son, Sir John Trevelyan (1735-1828), 4th bt., and the Trevelyans held the estate until it was given to the National Trust in 1941-42. The Trevelyans will be the subject of a future post.
Wylam Hall, Northumberland
An ancient house which began as a property used by the monks of Tynemouth Priory as a place of recreation and known as 'the Sporting House'. It has a complicated building history made more confusing by 20th century demolitions and alterations which have left it barely half the size it was a century ago and a good deal less regular.
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| Wylam Hall: view of the house from the south in the late 18th century. |
At the core is a medieval range running roughly east-west, which has a tunnel-vaulted ground floor some 62 ft long and 19 ft wide. In the early 19th century, this was given a pretty Gothick plaster rib vault, through which rises a curving staircase with cast iron Gothick balusters. The range now has an irregular south front with windows on both floors and an off-centre early 18th century doorway with a bolection-moulded surround and an open curly pediment.
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| Wylam Hall: view of the house from the south-east in the early 20th century, from an old postcard. |
However, early 20th century photographs shows this facade as symmetrical, with five windows set in architraves on the first floor and the doorcase centrally placed below them, with no windows to either side. The east end of the range had a Gothick window on the ground floor and a chimneystack above it. At right-angles to the facade was another, slightly lower, east-facing range, apparently of similar or slightly later date, with a large vertically-set oval window on the first floor. A further two-storey range projected north beyond the gable-end of the medieval range, and successive 6" and 25" Ordnance Survey plans show that this was one of two irregular ranges projecting north from the medieval core, of which the western was probably largely service accommodation.  |
| Wylam Hall: footprint as shown on 1st edn 6" map of 1859. |
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| Wylam Hall: footprint as shown on 1st edn 25" map of 1895 |
In the 19th century, the Blackett family moved to Oakwood House, and Wylam Hall was let, but at some point between 1859 and 1895 the medieval range was extended to the west, creating a slightly lower two-storey block with a large double-height bay window in the western gable-end; the northern service range was also extended to the west. These seem to have been the last significant additions to the house.
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| Wylam Hall: aerial view of the house from the south, c.2008. |
Further alterations to the building are recorded in 1913 (by Frank W. Rich) and 1936 (by Mauchlen, Weightman and Elphick of Newcastle), but significant reductions were undertaken in the 1950s, when the 18th century range south of the medieval core was completely demolished, as was the easternmost of the two ranges to the north of the medieval block and some of the western additions to the service range. The medieval range itself seems to have been truncated on the east and the gable-end rebuilt without a chimneystack or the Gothic window; and this truncation left the early 18th century doorcase off-centre. What was left of the house was divided into three residential units in about 1970, and completely replanned, with considerable alterations to the fabric and fenestration of those parts of the house which remained.
Descent: Crown sold 1628 to Richard Fenwick; to John Fenwick of East Heddon, who sold 1658 to Martin Fenwick of Kenton; to son, Nicholas Fenwick, who sold in several lots between 1679 and 1685 to John Blackett (1635-1707) of Horton Grange, Ponteland; to son, John Blackett (c.1680-1714); to son, John Blackett (1712-69); to son, John Blackett (1735-91); to brother, Thomas Blackett (1738-1800); to half-brother, Christopher Blackett (1751-1829); to son, Christopher Blackett (1787-1847); to son, John Fenwick Burgoyne Blackett (1821-56); to brother, Edward Algernon Blackett (1824-73); to son, Edward Umfreville Blackett (1853-1920); to son, Christopher John Walter Blackett (1900-71); sold after his death.
Oakwood House, Wylam, Northumberland
The secondary seat of the Blacketts at Wylam stood on higher ground north of the village and thus further from the coal mines which formed a major source of the family's income. The core of the house is a double-pile early 18th century block with a cross-wing that now forms the north-east corner of the house. It was perhaps built as a dower house or steward's house, but was significantly expanded in the late Georgian period by two new blocks to the west (now demolished) and south of the original house. The south range looks as though it might be early 19th century, but records of building work in the 1840s make it possible that it was later in date than the style would suggest. By 1832, the house had become the family's home at Wylam, but from the 1870s Oakwood was also let, and in the 1880s the Cookson family, who were the tenants, added a further block at the south-west corner of the house, providing a large reception room on the ground floor and bedrooms above.
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| Oakwood House, Wylam: south front before restoration. The two left-hand bays date from the 1880s; the rest probably from the early 19th century. |
The Cooksons remained at Oakwood House until the 1920s, but thereafter it was occupied on short-term tenancies. Plans for improvements were drawn up by Mauchlen, Weightman and Elphick of Newcastle in the late 1930s, and this was probably when the late Georgian north-west range was demolished and a new entrance was formed in what had been the rear wall of that range. After the war, the house continued to be occupied but gradually fell into disrepair. There were several alterations from the 1980s-2000s, but the house was eventually abandoned and most of the features of the building were removed. A thorough restoration was conducted from 2019 for a new owner, which included the restoration of the historic external render, masking the varied building materials used in different phases of the house's development.
Descent: perhaps first built as a dower house or steward's house for John Blackett (c.1680-1714) or his son, John Blackett (1712-69); to son, John Blackett (1735-91); to brother, Thomas Blackett (1738-1800); to half-brother, Christopher Blackett (1751-1829); to son, Christopher Blackett (1787-1847), who made it his seat; to son, John Fenwick Burgoyne Blackett (1821-56); to brother, Edward Algernon Blackett (1824-73); to son, Edward Umfreville Blackett (1853-1920); to son, Christopher John Walter Blackett (1900-71); sold after his death; sold 1993. The house was let from the 1870s onwards.
Greyfriars House (later Newe House and Anderson Place), Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Northumberland
Wallington Hall, Cambo, Northumberland
A 120-foot square house, built around a large central courtyard on the site of its predecessor, for Sir William Blackett (1657-1705), 1st bt., who had bought the estate from Sir John Fenwick. Although a large house, it was never intended to be Blackett's principal seat, which remained at Greyfriars House in Newcastle. Wallington was built as a shooting box, although it is possible that Blackett had one eye on the scope for it to become the seat of his descendants. By the time he bought Wallington, Blackett had already added classical three-bay wings with sash windows to either side of Greyfriars House, and his new house at Wallington was designed in a similar spirit, but had the long, low lines typical of many post-Restoration country houses. Very little can be said of the house as first built, for no illustration of it seems to be known and it was comprehensively remodelled in the 18th century, but the flattened E-plan form of the east and west fronts is original, and it is thought that the house originally had an oversailing roof supported on a wide wooden cornice.  |
| Wallington Hall: plan of the house in 1735, before alteration |
The architect is unknown, but Blackett had strong connections with London through his coal trade and is likely to have obtained a design there. A plan of the house, showing it in 1735 before the Georgian alterations, shows that the main entrance was into a great hall in the south range, which was flanked by a parlour in the south-west corner and a dining room in the south-east corner. The principal staircase lay in the west range, otherwise devoted to chambers, while the kitchen was in the north-east corner and the east range was given over to service accommodation with a secondary entrance, and a dressing room. Nothing can be said of the decoration of the rooms.
On the death of Sir William Blackett (1690-1728), 2nd bt., without legitimate issue, the estate was bequeathed to his illegitimate daughter, Elizabeth Ord, on the condition that within twelve months she married his nephew, Walter Calverley, and that they took the name Blackett. These conditions being complied with, Walter, who inherited his family baronetcy in 1749 and was usually known as Sir Walter Calverley Blackett, was in possession at Wallington by the mid 1730s, and already planning to remodel the house. His architect was Daniel Garrett (d. 1753), whose credentials as a designer were established by a period as Lord Burlington's draughtsman and by a junior post in the Office of Works, which he held from 1727-37 before being dismissed for 'not attending his duty'. He then set about building a private practice, but Wallington is the only commission he is known to have undertaken before leaving the Office of Works, and it may be that attendance in Northumberland was the occasion of his neglect of his official duties. Work at Wallington seems to have begun in 1735-36 with the building of a new service court formed of two L-shaped ranges of buildings north of the house.
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| Wallington Hall: the buildings of the outer court, of 1735-36, and the Clock Tower Gate of 1753-54. |
A wide gap between the two ranges was for a time filled with a three-bay gate screen, but this was found to be awkwardly narrow for the passage of carriages and was replaced in 1753-54 with the present dramatic Clock Tower Gate, a three-bay building with a central archway between large coupled Tuscan columns and topped by a big lantern with a cupola on an open rotunda of columns. It was originally designed in 1751, probably by Garrett (though James Paine has also been suggested), as a chapel, which would have had Venetian windows in the large openings either side of the archway.
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| Wallington Hall: the east front in the mid 20th century. |
After creating the outer court, Sir Walter and Garrett turned their attention to a radical remodelling of the house, which involved replacing the roof and giving it a more fashionable profile, with a parapet rather than oversailing eaves; replacing all the windows; forming a new main entrance on the east front and adding a pediment to the south front; partially infilling the courtyard so as to create a new staircase hall at its southern end and corridors along the east and west sides; remodelling the shape and functions of the interior rooms, and redecorating them with sumptuous plasterwork by Italian stuccatori under Pietro Francini. Work probably began in the 1730s, for the Francini were already established at Cambo by 1740, and as their contribution necessarily belonged to the later stages of the project, and it was probably completed in about 1745.
The principal reception rooms occupy the ground floor of the south wing, and consist of a richly decorated saloon (occupying much the same space as the former great hall), with the library to its west and the dining room to its east. The saloon is taller than the other rooms by virtue of having a high coved ceiling, and the room is decorated with an overall scheme with ribbon ornament, thin acanthus trails, heads and sphinxes, painted in a pale blue and white scheme that has the palette of Wedgwood china. The dining room has its east end screened by Corinthian columns, and has a simpler plaster ceiling, while the library has a stucco ceiling framing an oval relief with putti. The west end of the library has an Ionic screen, but this is a later 18th century alteration. A new main staircase was formed to the north of the saloon, in a space carved out of the central courtyard. It is a somewhat awkward site, and the timber stair rises in the centre to a half-pace where it divides into two before rising against the courtyard wall to a further half-pace and then returning to a landing against the south wall.
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| Wallington Hall: the staircase. Image: National Trust Images. |
On the death of Sir Walter Calverley Blackett without surviving issue in 1777, the estate passed to his nephew, Sir John Trevelyan (1735-1828), 4th bt., whose family retained it until the estate was given to the National Trust in 1941. In the 1850s, Sir Walter Calverley Trevelyan, whose first wife was a friend of John Ruskin, adopted Ruskin's suggestion that the remainder of the courtyard of the house should be roofed over to create a central circulation space, and decorated with mural paintings. The elderly Newcastle architect, John Dobson, was brought in to manage the structural alterations, and provided Italianate arcades on square pillars and an arched gallery.
The walls to the north and south, where the arcades were blind, were all painted in a pre-Raphaelite style by William Bell Scott, a young Newcastle drawing master who was a protégé of Ruskin, with a series of key scenes from Northumberland history; the spandrels were decorated with portrait heads in medallions; while the upper spandrels illustrate the Ballad of Chevy Chase. The pillars, which are the most charming element of the scheme, have illustrations of local flora, including one by Ruskin himself, another by Lady Trevelyan, and others by William Bell Scott and talented friends of the family.
Once the redevelopment of the house was approaching completion, Sir Walter Calverley Blackett turned his attention to the improvement of the grounds and the ornamentation of the wider estate. The earliest element seems to be the Battery, south-west of the house, which existed by 1742, and may have been intended as part of scheme of mock fortifications around the estate. Further developments seem to have taken place in the 1750s, when the East and West Woods were laid out. The West Wood has three ponds laid out along a stream, and a late 18th century icehouse. The East Wood has the Portico House, a summer house built in the early 1750s to the designs of Daniel Garrett, and the 'China Pond', named after a Chinese House which was erected nearby the 1750s but which no longer exists.
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| Rothley Castle: the central tower, built in 1746-47 to the designs of Daniel Garrett. Image: The Folly Flaneuse. |
Blackett's land extended for several miles to the north of the house and alongside developments around the house, he began to develop a picturesque landscape in the deer park at Rothley, about four miles away. The three-bay gate screen which had originally been set on the northern approach to the house was dismantled and re-erected as an eyecatcher on the horizon half a mile north-east of the house in about 1751. At Rothley itself Daniel Garrett designed Rothley Castle in 1746-47 as an eyecatcher and viewing point. The castle was built as a fictive Gothick ruin with a central, two-storey castellated tower linked to lower end towers by screen walls, but the whole is now an extensively shattered real ruin. |
Wallington Hall: the dragons' heads from London's Bishopsgate, now on
the east lawn, but formerly at Rothley Castle. Image: The Folly Flaneuse. |
The end towers had arched niches, which once held large statues, while the linking walls had cruciform slits and were decorated with four heads of mythical beasts (variously described as dragons or griffins) which are said to have come from London's Bishopsgate, pulled down in 1761, and to have been brought to Wallington as ballast in one of Blackett's coal boats; they are now on the lawn east of the hall.
A further phase of landscaping works was undertaken in the 1766, probably under the guidance of 'Capability' Brown. This included the creation of a new walled garden to the east, which was repurposed and redesigned as a flower garden for Lady Trevelyan in 1938. It is overlooked by an early 20th century conservatory and a mid 18th century brick gazebo, known as the Owl House, which may have been designed by Brown. The earlier walled garden, within East Wood, was replaced by the Garden Pond. No designs by Brown are known for these features, but he did provide plans for landscaping works in the deer park at Rothley, including the creation of two large ribbon lakes in the valley bottom, which Arthur Young called 'newly made' in 1770.
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Codger Fort, Rothley: sketch by Thomas Wright for the proposed fort. The central tower was never built.
(Image: National Trust Images/Donald Bovill & Susan McCormack |
A second eyecatcher/viewpoint was also built in the park at Rothley to the designs of Thomas Wright, which is known as Codger Fort. This is a triangular bastion constructed of enormous rough-hewn blocks of stone, but is missing its intended square central tower, which seems never to have been built. Wright's sketch for the building is dated 1769 but work was not started until the 1770s and was perhaps incomplete at the time of Sir Walter Calverley Blackett's death in 1777. Sir Walter's successor abandoned the deer park at Rothley and returned the land to agriculture.
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| Codger Fort: the site today. Image: The Folly Flaneuse. |
In 1941-42, Wallington became the first large estate to be donated in its entirety to the National Trust under its newly formulated Country Houses scheme. Sir Charles Trevelyan, who made the gift, was a prominent socialist MP and was motivated by a desire to ensure that the working rural landscape and family treasures could be preserved and enjoyed by the public and future generations rather than broken up. The Trust continues to manage and care for the estate, and opens the house and grounds to the public. Rothley Castle, which was in separate ownership, was acquired by the Trust in 2004.
Descent: Sir John Fenwick sold 1689 to Sir William Blackett (1657-1705), 1st bt.; to son, Sir William Blackett (1690-1728), 2nd bt.; to illegitimate daughter, Elizabeth Ord (1711-59), later wife of his nephew, Sir Walter Calverley (later Blackett) (1707-77), 2nd bt.; to nephew, Sir John Trevelyan (1735-1828), 4th bt.; to son, Sir John Trevelyan (1761-1846), 5th bt.; to son, Sir Walter Calverley Trevelyan (1797-1879); to kinsman, Sir Charles Edward Trevelyan (1807-96), 1st bt.; to son, Sir George Otto Trevelyan (1838-1928), 2nd bt.; to son, Sir Charles Philips Trevelyan (1870-1958), 3rd bt., who donated the house and estate in 1941-42 to The National Trust.
Newby Hall, Skelton-on-Ure, Yorkshire (WR)
Newby Hall is one of the finest Georgian houses in the county. That was the opinion of Celia Fiennes when she visited the newly-built house in 1697 and it remains true today, though the house has evolved a great deal since. The core of the house is still the mansion built c.1685-93 for Sir Edward Blackett, a Newcastle coal magnate who had bought the estate in 1677 and demolished the earlier manor house of the Crosland family. In 1727 Daniel Defoe stated that Sir Christopher Wren 'laid out the Design, as well as chose the Ground' for the house, and although this has often been dismissed as unreliable evidence, a small payment has recently been found in 1694 'to the servants of Sir Christopher Wren', which coupled with the stylistic evidence makes the attribution seem more plausible. Wren, preoccupied with St Pauls and the City churches, designed very few country houses, so perhaps it is most likely that he or his office supplied a set of designs, and that these were interpreted on site by John Etty of York, who is known to have been involved, perhaps as Clerk of Works.
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| Newby Park: bird's eye view by Kip & Knyff, from Britannia Illustrata, 1707. |
As first built in the 1690s, the house was a nine-by-five-bay, three-storey red brick block with a balustraded parapet on all sides concealing a flat roof, from which rose a square cupola over the centre of the block, crowned by a weathervane supplied by John Etty in 1694. On the west-facing entrance front, the two end bays were stepped forward and emphasised by stone quoins, and the central bay was also brought slightly forward; the former doorway has coupled Corinthian columns, a richly ornamented entablature, and a segmental pediment. The windows of the house were sashes from the beginning, with lugged architraves and stringcourses between the storeys. A second semicircular pediment stood above the first floor window of the centre and there was originally a triangular pediment breaking through the parapet, though this was removed later. On the east side of the house the central three bays were originally slightly recessed, and faced a service court with a pair of detached pavilions, probably housing the laundry and other noxious offices. The house was surrounded by an extensive formal landscape, very probably designed by London & Wise as John Blackett, the son and successor of Sir Edward at Newby, married Henry Wise's daughter in 1718. The stables and kitchen gardens stood to the south, between the pleasure gardens and the River Ure.
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| Newby Hall: west front in 1955. Image: M.W. Parry/Historic England AA55/2132. |
In 1748 the estate was sold to Richard Elcock Weddell, the son of a York tradesman who had inherited a fortune from a bachelor uncle in 1747 with the requirement that the money was 'to be laid out in the purchase of lands'. He died in 1762 and was succeeded by his son William Weddell (1736-92), a young 'virtuoso' who was to transform the house. It seems that alterations began in the 1750s for his father, for some accounts suggest John Carr was engaged from about 1757 on the construction of two wings framing the east front, where he also created a new, slightly projecting, three-bay centre and formed a new entrance. Work was still underway on Carr's scheme in 1764 when Weddell set out on a Grand Tour of France, Switzerland and Italy, from which he returned in 1765 with an exceptional haul of pictures and classical sculpture (12 cases of marbles and 86 paintings), including the Barberini Venus, which remained in the family until 2002.
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| Newby Hall: the east front in the late 20th century, showing the wings and new centre added by Carr but altered later. |
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| Newby Hall: watercolour by John Buckler showing the house from the south-east, 1806. Image: Yale Centre for British Art. |
On his return from the grand tour, Weddell consulted James 'Athenian' Stuart and Sir William Chambers about the fitting out of the new wings and other improvements to the house, before turning to Robert Adam, whose earliest plans are dated 1767. The south wing was decorated as a sculpture gallery to display Weddell's grand tour purchases, while that on the the north contained a new kitchen and laundry. The late 17th century main block was also completely redecorated under Adam's direction, creating one of his most memorable sequences of spaces, combining classical erudition and elegance with comfortably domestic scale. Adam brought in William Belwood (1739-90) of York as his executant architect, a role he had recently performed for Adam at Harewood House (Yorks WR), and Belwood came to be independently responsible for raising the height of Carr's wings by an attic storey, building a new stable block north of the house in c.1777, and making alterations to the first floor, the porch, and the lodges.
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| Newby Hall: the new stables, built in 1777 by William Belwood (Image: Country Life). |
In addition to work on the house, Weddell commissioned Thomas White, the leading regional landscape gardener in Yorkshire, to remodel the formal landscape visible in the Kip/Knyff engraving of 1707 in a more Brownian fashion. The old avenues were cleared away to create open parkland around the house, which was encircled by shelter belt plantations, and a new pond was created near the kitchen garden. Work begun in 1766 and continued until at least 1770, and White's scheme seems to have been fully implemented. The immediate surroundings of the house were partly remodelled by William Burges in the 1870s for Lady Mary Vyner, and he was responsible for the elaborate forecourt gatepiers and gates before the east front. The large equestrian statue of King Charles II was moved to its present position from the Vyner's Lincolnshire seat of Gautby Park in 1883. A much more significant alteration to the grounds was made in the 1920s, when a new garden was laid out on a large scale between the house and the River Ure. Later additions to the grounds include two timber and glass pavilions on the east side of the garden, built in 1981 (by Patrick Minns) and 2004.
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| Newby Hall: ground floor plan by John Buckler, 1815, showing the circuit of the main rooms. Image: Yale Centre for British Art. |
Adam's interiors were designed to form an anti-clockwise sequence comprising the entrance hall, study (now a drawing room), tapestry room, ante room, dining room (now library) and the sculpture gallery, and they have plasterwork by Joseph Rose throughout. The sequence begins with the entrance hall, decorated in 1769-72, which has a Doric frieze, eight plaster military trophies around the walls between pictures set in plaster frames, a plasterwork ceiling with compartments and more trophies, for which Adam's design survives in the Soane Museum, and an original marble pavement, which reflects the outline of the ceiling above. A marble fireplace is set in one side wall, opposite an earlier organ which was perhaps designed by James Stuart or Weddell himself.
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| Newby Hall: entrance hall in 1914. Image: Country Life. |
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Newby Hall: watercolour of the vestibule by John Buckler, 1813
Image: Yale Center for British Art. |
The corner of the entrance hall connects through a short passage and a screen with a larger vestibule, leading to what was originally Weddell's library, but later became a boudoir and is now the drawing room. Only the ceiling remains of Adam's decoration of this room, for his bookcases were replaced by Belwood in 1789, and all but one of those have since gone too. Beyond the drawing room is the present dining room, an addition of 1807-08, designed by Lord Grantham (better known as an amateur architect by his later title, Earl de Grey), which has segment-headed rectangular recesses at either end, with their soffits coffered, and a frieze copied from a design by Grantham's father for Baldersby Park.
Returning to the entrance hall, two doors in the rear wall lead into the Tapestry Drawing Room, which derives its name from the set of tapestries supplied to Weddell by the Gobelins factory, featuring large medallions of the elements taken from paintings by Boucher. They were probably ordered by Weddell on a trip to Paris in 1763 or more probably on his return from Italy in 1765, and were supplied in stages between 1767 and 1769. Adam designed the room around them, his scheme for the ceiling - which has inset paintings by Zucchi - being dated 1769, while the chimneypiece was supplied in 1774 and the design for the Axminster carpet, designed by Adam to complement the ceiling, being dated 1775.
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| Newby Hall: dining room of 1807-08. Image: Screen Yorkshire. |
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| Newby Hall: the tapestry drawing room in 1914. Image: Country Life. |
To the south of the tapestry room lay a small apsed ante room separating it from Weddell's dining room, which was decorated in the Etruscan style by Adam. Sadly, the 'singularly beautiful chaste and classical decoration' of this space was removed in 1807 when the wall separating it from the staircase hall was taken down and the dining room was converted into a library. The staircase hall was also decorated by Adam, but the timber staircase itself is a survival from the earlier house. It was, however, given a delicate wrought iron balustrade of honeysuckle pattern (comparable to that at Osterley House (Middx)) by Adam, who also made up the Ionic screen with green marble columns on the ground floor and the arcaded first-floor screen. The columns and capitals on the ground floor were among the items brought back from Weddell's grand tour, and were thought to be antique.
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| Newby Hall: library (formerly dining room), looking west. |
The south side of the house is occupied entirely by the library (formerly the dining room) and the sculpture gallery. The library, which fills the south end of the main block, was created in 1767-69 and has apsidal ends screen by fluted Corinthian columns, rich plaster wall panels, frieze and ceiling, and painted overdoors, overmantel and ceiling panel by Zucchi. The marble chimneypiece has Bacchic terms as supporters and Zucchi's ceiling panel depicts a Triumph of Bacchus; both allude to its former use as a dining room. The original colour scheme was an early and tentative essay in the Etruscan manner, and Adam designed a set of painted furniture in the same taste for the room, some of which survives elsewhere in the house. The decorative scheme was altered in 1807 and again later. The apses at either end have niches in which alabaster urns were displayed, but only one of these survives in situ; the other niches are covered over by the later bookcases.
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| Newby Hall: view through the sculpture gallery by John Buckler, 1817. Image: Yale Center for British Art |
The sculpture gallery is the climax of the house, and the design evolved over some six years between 1766 and 1772. It is formed of a central domed rotunda linked to square spaces with flat ceilings, and is thought to derive from a prize-winning design by George Dance for a public picture gallery exhibited in Rome in 1762, which Robert Adam's brother and partner James may have seen as he was there at the time. The rotunda has big niches, suitable for statues, on the diagonals and there are smaller ones in the square spaces and the links between them and the rotunda. The rotunda has a coffered dome with an oculus at the top, and the walls, ceilings, and niches have rich plasterwork - so rich as to be a distraction from the sculpture according to another collector, Charles Towneley, who visited in 1779. Adam produced two designs for a pavement for the gallery, but neither was ever executed, perhaps to avoid increasing the visual indigestion that Towneley was worried about. The form of the room offers constantly changing and highly picturesque views from one part of the space into the others.
The first floor bedrooms have simple Adam cornices and chimneypieces, but the only upstairs room to call for particular attention is the billiard room, added above the early 19th century dining room in 1892-94 to the designs of Walker & Strong. This is an intensely Victorian space, with a coved and beamed ceiling in the neo-Jacobean style, pleasant enough in its own right, but externally disturbing the symmetry of the elevations in an unfortunate way.
In 1792 the estate passed to William Weddell's cousin, Thomas Philip Robinson (later Weddell, then de Grey) (d. 1859), 3rd Lord Grantham (and later Earl de Grey). When he died, Newby Hall passed to his daughter, Lady Mary Gertrude Robinson, who married Henry Vyner (1805-61). Two of their sons, Henry Frederick Clare Vyner (1836-83) and Robert Charles de Grey Vyner (1842-1915) inherited in turn. The latter left no sons, and his daughter, Mary Evelyn Vyner (d. 1957) widow of Lord Alwyne Compton, who was himself a descendant of William Weddell. In 1921 the Newby estate was handed over to their son, Maj. Edward Compton, who developed the gardens. In 1960 the house was handed on again to R.E.J. (Robin) Compton, whose younger son, Richard Clephane Compton, took over as owner in 1997, the eldest son having inherited the Invercauld estate in Scotland. The Comptons have restored the house and open it regularly to the public in summer.
Descent: Sir Jordan Crosland (d. 1670)...sold 1677 to Sir Edward Blackett (1649-1718), 2nd bt., who rebuilt the house; to son, Sir Edward Blackett (1682-1756), 3rd bt., who leased it to his brother, John Blackett (1683-1750), and sold 1748 to Richard Elcock Weddell (d. 1762); to son, William Weddell (1736-92); to kinsman, Thomas Robinson (1781-1859), 3rd Baron Grantham and 2nd Earl de Grey; to daughter, Lady Mary Gertrude, wife of Henry Vyner (1805-61); to son, Henry Frederick Clare Vyner (1836-83); to brother, Robert Charles de Grey Vyner (1842-1915); to daughter, Mary Evelyn Violet (d. 1957), widow of Lord Alwyne Frederick Compton (1855-1911), who gave it in 1921 to her son, Maj. Edward Robert Francis Compton (1891-1977); given 1960 to Robert Edward John (k/a Robin) Compton (1922-2009), who handed it over in 1997 to Richard Clephane Compton (b. 1957).
Thorpe Lea House, Thorpe, Surrey
Confusingly, there were two houses of this name in close proximity to one another in an area generously provided with villas and small country houses, both of which were owned by the Blackett family at different times. The original Thorpe Lea House is recorded in a view of 1822 which shows a seven bay, two-and-a-half storey early 18th century house with sash windows grouped 2-3-2. It is said to have been built c.1727 for W. Shorston.
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| Thorpe Lea House I: drawing by J. Hassall, 1822. Image: Surrey History Centre. |
Although the ownership history of this building is reasonably well documented, the architectural changes by which this pleasant-looking house evolved into the chaotic and frankly rather ugly house of the late 20th century is unknown.
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| Thorpe Lea House I: the house (then known as Thorpe Lea Manor) shortly before demolition. |
The house seems to have remained in private ownership until the Second World War, when it was requisitioned by the War Office. After the war it returned briefly to private ownership before briefly being a night club in the 1960s. A fire left it totally derelict, but it was reconstructed for use as business premises known as Thorpe Lea Manor before being demolished in the summer of 2024 prior to the redevelopment of the site for private housing.
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| Thorpe Lea House II: drawing of the garden front by J. Hassall, 1823. Image: Surrey History Centre. |
The second Thorpe Lea House was built about 1802 for Sir Edward Blackett, 4th bt while he was living at the first Thorpe Lea House. It was a five-by-three bay Regency villa, again of two-and-a-half storeys, with a roof concealed by a low parapet. At the rear was a broad curved bow and a projecting wing terminating in a full-height canted bow window, though the latter feature seems to have disappeared by the early 20th century.
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| Thorpe Lea House II: the entrance front and side elevation c.1900. |
A fire in 1918 caused considerable damage to the first floor of the west wing. By the 1930s it had become a hotel and during the Second World War it was requisitioned, and after the war it became a Jewish college for a time, and the residence of Rabbi Weingarten. The house later fell into disrepair and it was eventually demolished in the early 1970s for the construction of the M25.
Descent of Thorpe Lea House I: W. Shorston (fl. 1727); sold to Timothy Isaacs (fl. 1742); sold to Richard Wyatt sold 1794 to Sir Edward Blackett (1719-1804), 4th bt.; sold 1802 to James Ludovic Grant; sold 1809 to Sir Henry Tempest, bt.; sold 1821 to Col. J. Stapleton; sold 1845 to Miss Watson; sold 1845 to Lady Bowyer Smith; sold 1868 to W. Hill; sold 1873 to Lady Milford and T.J. Eyre sold 1909 to George Perkins (fl. 1930)...
Descent of Thorpe Lea House II: built c.1802 for Sir Edward Blackett (1719-1804), 4th bt.; to son, Sir William Blackett (1759-1816), 5th bt.; to son, John Charles Blackett (1813-96), who sold 1831 to his mother, Mary Anne, Lady Blackett (d. 1859), who gave the house back to him before her death; to his widow (d. 1899); sold c.1900 to Thomas Eyre (d. 1902)...sold to Mrs Ashton Cross (fl. 1910), a dog breeder; sold by 1916 to Mrs Alice Radcliffe, who ran it as a boarding house; sold to Mountcombe Hotels...
Bonnyrigg Hall, Henshaw, Northumberland
A substantial and attractive gabled house, designed by John Dobson of Newcastle in 1828-30 for Sir Edward Blackett, 6th bt., of Matfen, and built alongside the construction of his new main residence at Matfen Hall.
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| Bonnyrigg Hall: the house from the south-east. |
The house was a square block, three bays by three, with the main front facing south. Here there was a central single-storey battlemented stone porch with octagonal buttresses rising into tall finials. To either side was a gabled bay with an oriel window on the first floor. The east front also had gabled end bays either side of a single central bay, but here there were canted bay windows below the gables and plain mullioned windows on the central bay. To the west of the house was a lower gabled service wing, and behind that, stables and outbuildings.
Bonnyrigg was not intended for continuous occupation, but only as a shooting box for use each August and September, during the shooting season. The tradition of seasonal use is said to have continued until the 1930s and to have been revived in the 1950s, but in the 1960s the house was sold. The main block of the house was destroyed by fire in 1985 and the ruins subsequently demolished; only the coach house, stable block, part of the service wing and outbuildings survived. These have now been converted into a small house and holiday accommodation.
Matfen Hall, Northumberland
The Fenwick family are said to have had a Jacobean house called High Hall at West Matfen in Northumberland, which they sold in 1680 to John Douglas (c.1640-1727), a prosperous Newcastle merchant. He built a new house in about 1690, of which the elaborate early 18th century gatepiers through which the present house is approached may be a survival.
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| West Matfen High Hall: watercolour by Alethea, Lady Blackett, of the predecessor of the present building, which must be based on an earlier drawing. |
The appearance of this house before the 19th century rebuilding is recorded in a couple of sketches, which show a three-storey, five-bay brick house with stone quoins at the angles, and a projecting central porch, also with stone quoins, rising to a pedimental gable. John Douglas's granddaughter and heir, Anne Douglas (c.1718-1805) married Sir Edward Blackett (1719-1804), 4th bt., in 1751, and the estate remains the property of his descendants, although the house itself was sold in 2020.
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| Matfen Hall: Rickman's original design for the house, 1832. |
Sir Edward's grandson, another Sir Edward Blackett (1805-85), 6th bt, inherited as a minor in 1816 and built the present house in 1828-35, soon after he came of age. He first consulted John Dobson of Newcastle, who worked for him at Bonnyrigg Hall, but in the end chose Thomas Rickman (1776-1841) as his architect. Rickman belonged to the generation of architects for whom an ability to design in an eclectic mix of styles was the prerequisite for a successful practice.
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| Matfen Hall: entrance front |
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| Matfen Hall: garden front |
Blackett proved to be a headstrong client of decided views, who insisted on the 'Elizabethan style' for the exterior of the house, in opposition to Rickman's preference for a Gothic scheme, and made many changes to the designs. This led to growing differences between the two men, and in 1835, when work was almost complete, Rickman was dismissed. Sir Edward thereafter carried on the work under his own superintendence, but for the main staircase in particular and some other woodwork details, he drew on the professional support of Lewis Nockalls Cottingham (1787-1847).
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| Matfen Hall: the central hall and staircase. |
The result is a large and solid neo-Elizabethan house with mullioned and transomed windows, shaped gables, and a porch tower with an elaborate canted oriel window above the door. The south front is largely symmetrical, but has a service wing to the west to upset the symmetry. Inside, the principal space is a vast Gothic staircase hall, of a volume out of all proportion to the size of the house. It is lit by a big geometric window on the west which would not be out of place in a cathedral, and has a hammerbeam roof, arcades on both sides, and Cottingham's oak staircase with castellated newels running up one of the long walls. The other rooms are unremarkable by comparison, with simple plaster ceilings and friezes and some neo-Tudor panelling. The library has a reused early 17th century fireplace (perhaps from the previous house) and the drawing room has a white marble chimneypiece by Chantrey, with female figures in the jambs and shells in the frieze, which is said to have been made for Buckingham Palace but had not been paid for when works there were abruptly terminated on the death of George IV in 1830.
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| Matfen Hall: drawing room |
After the death of Sir Hugh Douglas Blackett (1873-1960), 8th bt., in 1960, the house stood empty for a number of years, but a use was found for it in 1965 when it was leased to the Leonard Cheshire Homes, a charity for disabled servicemen. It served this purpose until 1994, when the residents moved to purpose-built new accommodation in Newcastle and the lease was given up. Their withdrawal coincided with the death of Sir George William Blackett (1906-94), 10th bt., whose nephew and heir (now Sir Hugh Francis Blackett (b. 1955), 12th bt.), inherited in that year. He and his wife decided that the only way that the house could be made to pay was by conversion to a hotel and country club. After substantial investment by the family, the hotel opened in 1999 and it was further enlarged in 2004. The Blacketts themselves now live at Halton Castle on the estate, and sold to hotel as a going concern in 2020. It has since been further restored and enlarged.
Descent: Oley Douglas (1684-1719); to daughter Anne (1719-1805), wife of Sir Edward Blackett (1719-1804), 4th bt.; to son, Sir William Blackett (1758-1816), 5th bt.; to son, Sir Edward Blackett (1805-85), 6th bt.; to son, Sir Edward William Blackett (1831-1909), 7th bt.; to son, Sir Hugh Douglas Blackett (1873-1960), 8th bt.; to son, Sir Charles Douglas Blackett (1904-68), 9th bt.; to brother, Sir George William Blackett (1906-94), 10th bt.; to brother, Sir Francis Hugh Blackett (1907-95), 11th bt.; to son, Sir Hugh Francis Blackett (b. 1955), 12th bt., who converted it into an hotel and sold it in 2020. The house was let from 1965-94 to the Cheshire Homes Charity.
Sockburn Hall, Co. Durham
A handome ashlar neo-Jacobean house set in a loop of the River Tees, built in 1833-34 for Henry Collingwood Blackett (1808-56), very probably to the designs of Thomas Rickman, who was the architect first selected by his brother to work on Matfen Hall a few years earlier. The attribution seems to be confirmed by a newspaper report in 1833 which mentions 'Rickman's men' working at Sockburn.
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| Sockburn Hall in the early 20th century |
The house has a square plan arranged around a central timber staircase, with three bays on the east, south and west fronts, the outer ones on each side rising into shaped gables. The south and east sides have two-storey bay windows, and the roof has a solid parapet, pierced above the bay windows, and tall chimneystacks, mostly in groups of three. A lower service wing runs away to the north, towards the former coach house and stable block and outbuildings. Inside, one ground-floor room is said to be panelled with dismantled dower chests of the 15th-17th centuries. In the early 20th century a lime avenue was planted to the west of the house and an Edwardian rose garden laid out next to it.
The house became derelict in the late 20th and early 21st century, was on the buildings at risk register, and was threatened with demolition, but thanks to a group of volunteers and a new owner determined to return it to splendour, this disaster was averted and the house was fully restored in c.2015-17, including the neo-Jacobean plaster ceilings of the interior.
Descent: built for Henry Collingwood Blackett (1808-56); to widow, Theophania Blackett (1803-77)... Arthur Edward Blackett (1874-1959), who sold 1920... sold 1950s to Gatheral family, who sold 2015. The house was let from 1877 until c.1910.
Principal sources
Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, 2003, pp. 385-86; Burke's Extinct and Dormant Baronetcies, 2nd edn., 1841, pp. 63-64; Burke's Landed Gentry, 1969, p. 50; J. Cornforth, 'Wallington Hall', Country Life, 16-30 April 1970; J. Cornforth, 'Newby Hall, Yorkshire', Country Life, 7-14 June 1979; D. King, The complete works of Robert and James Adam, 1991, pp. 245-48; Sir N. Pevsner, I. Richmond, J. Grundy et al., The buildings of England: Northumberland, 2nd edn., 1992, pp. 386-87, 601-04, 636; J. Myles, L.N. Cottingham, 1787-1847, 1996, p. 146; J. Cornforth, 'Newby Hall, Yorkshire', 17 July 1997; A.W. Purdue, The ship that came home: the story of a northern dynasty, 2004; P. Leach & Sir N. Pevsner, The buildings of England: Yorkshire West Riding - Leeds, Bradford and the north, 2009, pp. 600-04; G. Finch, The Blacketts: a northern dynasty's rise, crisis and redemption, 2021; D. Turnbull & L. Wickham, Thomas White (c.1736-1811): redesigning the northern British landscape, 2022, pp. 217-19; R. White, Georgian Arcadia, 2023, pp. 31, 131, 246;
Location of archives
Blackett family of Wylam: deeds, family and business papers, 1608-1802 [Northumberland Archives, ZBK]
Blackett family of Matfen Hall, baronets: deeds, accounts, estate and legal papers, 1257-19th cent. [North Yorkshire Record Office, ZE]; deeds, estate, family, legal and household papers, 1298-1937 [Northumberland Archives, ZBL]
Blackett family of Newby Hall, baronets: some deeds survive among the records of their successors, the Weddell and Vyner families [West Yorkshire Archives Service, Leeds WYL 5013]
Blackett family of Wallington, baronets: some papers survive among the records of their successors, the Trevelyans of Wallington [Northumberland Archives, ZWN]
Coat of arms
Blackett of Wylam Hall: Argent, on a chevron between three mullets sable, three escallops argent.
Can you help?
- If anyone can offer further information or corrections to any part of this article I should be most grateful. I am always particularly pleased to hear from current owners or the descendants of families associated with a property who can supply information from their own research or personal knowledge for inclusion.
Revision and acknowledgements
This post was first published 27 October 2026.
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