Broughton Hall, Skipton, North Yorkshire, England

This registered site is part of a larger 1200 hectare estate financed in part by the establishment of a business park in the late 20th century. Businesses (51 in total in 2008) occupy converted farm buildings. The estate now employs over 600 people. As part of the development the 19th-century walled garden was rebuilt and an award-winning pavilion constructed within it designed by Sir Michael Hopkins, which serves as a restuarant and meeting space. The landscape around it was designed by Dan Pearson and features undulating landforms, yew hedges and generous areas of tall perennial planting with paths flowing through them.

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

Formal gardens by William Andrews Nesfield of 1855-7 which are considered to be one of the best surviving examples of his work (Jellicoe et al 1986) and pleasure grounds partially remodelled by Nesfield which incorporate elements of an early to mid-19th-century or earlier layout with early 18th-century origins. The park has 18th-century or earlier origins and it was probably landscaped in the early 19th century.

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

Broughton Hall lies about 5 kilometres west of Skipton in a rural and agricultural setting. The roughly 75 hectare site is on rolling land through which the Broughton Beck runs approximately east/west across the northern part of the site and the Denbers Dyke runs almost parallel to it through the southern part of the site. The A59 forms most of the northern boundary, a disused railway line runs along the southern boundary and fences divide the remaining boundaries from agricultural land.

REFERENCES Used by English Heritage

Country Life, 107 (31 March 1950), pp 876-9; 169 (29 January 1981), pp 270-2

N Pevsner, The Buildings of England: Yorkshire The West Riding (1959), pp 149-50

G & S Jellicoe et al, The Oxford Companion to Gardens (1986), p 74

Maps

T Jefferys, County map, 1771

OS 6" to 1 mile: 1st edition surveyed 1848-50; 3rd edition published 1910

OS 25" to 1 mile: 2nd edition published 1909
 

Description written: December 1998

Edited: October 1999