Duncombe Park, Helmsley, England

The following is from the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest.

HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT

The estate was owned by Walter de L'Espec in 1120 and it passed through his sister to the de Ros family and subsequently through the female line to the Manners family, Earls of Rutland in 1508. In 1632 the estate passed to George Villiers, first Duke of Buckingham, who married the heiress Katherine Manners. After the death of the second Duke of Buckingham in 1687 the 40,000 acre (about 16,500 hectares) estate was sold to Sir Charles Duncombe, the City of London goldsmith/banker who bequeathed it at his death in 1711 to his nephew Thomas Duncombe. Work on the house and garden was initiated in about 1713 and completed around 1730, with his son Thomas laying out the Rievaulx Terrace (see description of this site elsewhere in the Register) on an adjoining estate in about 1758. This was on lands originally given to the Cistercians by Walter de L'Espec for the founding of Rievaulx Abbey, and purchased from the King by Thomas Manners at the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1538. The estate continues in the Duncombe family, who were created earls of Feversham in 1868, with Duncombe Park being the home of the present owner, the sixth Baron Feversham (1998).