europe – The Countryman's Daughter

Swanning about at Swinton

The Turret at Swinton Park which was an amazing place to stay

The spectacular circular bathroom in The Turret

The dining room is called ‘Samuel’s’ after textile millionaire Samuel Cunliffe-Lister who bought Swinton in 1888

A few years ago, my best friend and I realised that our relationship was about to pass a significant milestone – that of 50 years. We had met when her mum and my dad, who were both writers living in the same village, arranged a play date for us four-year-old girls.

We got on like a house on fire and have been the best of friends ever since. Our friendship is rather unusual in that we have never attended the same school and always had completely separate social circles. We went to different universities, moved to different cities, and lived and worked miles away from each other. And yet our friendship remained steadfast. Apart from my immediate family, she has known me longer than anyone else on the planet. Because we still live 200 miles apart, we don’t see each other as often as we’d like, so the time we do spend together is very precious.

As the half century anniversary approached, we felt it warranted a weekend break together. We had a wonderful time in a nice hotel, just the two of us pampering ourselves, eating good food and drinking good wine and chatting about everything and nothing. It was brilliant.

As happens with other occasions of such national importance, we decreed that it had to be honoured every year. We are both working mothers who have survived raising three children, who have also miraculously emerged (relatively) unscathed, and so it is only right that we get an annual pass out to indulge ourselves.

I’ve just returned from our latest jolly, the fourth, and it has pitched the bar rather high. We went to the swanky Swinton Park Hotel in Masham and found to our delight that, due to an issue with our original room, we had an upgrade – to a turret. Actually, not A turret, but THE Turret. There is only one at Swinton Park.

We had the whole turret to ourselves – all three floors of it. As you’d imagine, the rooms are round in shape and there are a lot of stairs, but the added bonus is that you can work off all the rich food and wine you consume by running up and down to the bathroom on the top floor and the sitting room on the bottom.

For many years, the house was known as Swinton Castle thanks to the Gothic nature of the architecture, with great towers, imposing gateways, battlements atop the walls, and of course the famous turret that stands proud at the main entrance. The original building was constructed in 1695 by the magnificently-named wool merchant, Sir Abstrupus Danby and then inherited by his son, also called Abstrupus, who continued to extend the grand home. But his son, William Danby, presumably miffed at being given such an ordinary name, just about obliterated the original building constructed by his grandfather and replaced it with an extraordinary ‘castle’.

The castle was sold in 1888 to Samuel Cunliffe-Lister, a multi-millionaire in the Bradford textile industry who decided that the turret simply wasn’t grand enough, so he made it bigger and more castley. And when you own the largest silk mill in the world and employ 11,000 people, I think you have earned the right to build a turret as big as you like.

It’s not just about the turret though. Swinton is a vast estate of 20,000 acres across the Yorkshire Dales, employing more than 200 mainly local people. Swinton Park Hotel covers just 200 of those acres, and the whole lot remains in Cunliffe-Lister hands. There was a major bump in the road in the mid-1970s when the family was forced to sell the house due to the rising costs of running the place, not helped by a whopping inheritance tax bill. However, the family were able to buy it back in 2000, and the current owners, Mark Cunliffe-Lister (the 4th Earl of Swinton) and his wife Felicity have transformed it into a thriving multi-faceted business, combining the historic local traditions of the land with our modern expectations of luxurious getaways.

There was a lot more that we didn’t get to see and do on our stay there, so I’m not sure just one night in a turret is enough. We may have to go back next year.

I do wonder, though, do you have a special friendship?

Do you have opinions, memories or ideas to share with me? Get in touch with me using the ‘Contact’ button on the top right.

This column appeared in the Darlington & Stockton Times on Friday 4th and the Ryedale Gazette and Herald on Wednesday 2nd April 2025

The legacy of lost things

1-100_0612 — A clock face made by reader David Severs’ ancestor Hugh Pannell with the herringbone pattern around the outer edge of the dial and around the name boss, along with the rare ‘Clock & Watchmaker’ inscription.

I’ve had some more feedback from readers following the column I wrote about the stones marked with the herringbone pattern typically used in the construction of traditional North Yorkshire moorland homes. Reader John Severs had referred me to a book entitled ‘Life in the Moorlands of North-East Yorkshire’ written in 1972 by Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilby. There was a section on this specific type of masonry along with some photographs featuring a well-known local family, the Weatherills.

Another reader, John Buckworth, has emailed to say: “Good to read your article re. Mr G. Weatherill. We were a customer of his some years ago and a great admirer of his craftsmanship. I pass his stone yard at Ainthorpe quite frequently and still see the antiquated home-made crane to lift the headstones. Also there’s a piece of carved stone on his wall depicting a fox’s mask, brush and hunting horn. Most country people followed the hunt and I find this a great tribute to the past way of life. Being now in my 80s I am a great admirer of country life and your father’s writings.”

He added: “I think the old crane was built by his grandfather…There are some very fancy and OTT headstones. However when my wife’s father died, he was a man of the soil and we walked into the stone yard at Ainthorpe and there was a piece of rough Yorkshire sandstone which fitted the man admirably.”

My editor at the Darlington and Stockton Times, Hannah Chapman, spotted something relevant on a weekend walk: “I was walking on the Cleveland Way yesterday (north from Lordstones café) and I’m sure I spotted a stone in the path with the grooved diagonal pattern you wrote about in the Chop Gate area. Could the old stones from houses in the area have been used to build paths?”

I think Hannah probably has a point – why not reuse stones from the tumbled down moorland buildings in the construction and repairs of our public walkways?

I also received a couple more stories about ‘lost things’ and how difficult it is to discard a lone earring. Monica Ganz contacted me all the way from America about a bracelet her mother had given her: “It had a daisy as a charm. I loved it, because the daisy was painted yellow and white…I was delivering newspapers on my bike and somehow the Daisy fell off, never to be found again. When I was older in my 20s, I was water skiing. I wore these cute little gold huggy earrings that had small diamond on them. Of course…the earring popped off…I still have the bracelet and the one earring…Why do we lose treasured items? Hard to know why, right? And it’s hard to part with them.”

I wonder if it is more the memories and feelings that are held within the precious item that makes it hard to let go?

David Severs from Northallerton had his own fascinating story too: “You might be interested to know that in Saywell’s ‘History and Annals of Northallerton’ he recounts how a gardener’s newlywed wife had lost her wedding ring in their garden and 14 years later, in 1796, it was found when a customer cut into a turnip and found the ring inside.”

David also mentioned how the herringbone pattern was used in the decoration of clocks and watches: “Herringbone engraving was used on the brass dials of long-case clocks in the early years of the 18th-century in London … said to be a sign of quality. Some clockmakers used it until about 1740. My ancestor Hugh Pannell, the Northallerton clockmaker, was in business until he died in 1788. I have traced well over 100 of the clocks he made and many of them have herringbone engraving. Most clockmakers decorated the spandrels on their brass dials (the corners) with cast-brass decoration; a few engraved the spandrels; and even fewer left them undecorated: Hugh did all three…Most of his dials have herringbone engraving somewhere. Incidentally on the photograph (seen here) he described himself as ‘Clock & Watchmaker’ and this is very rare indeed. In very many years I have found only one example by one other clockmaker whereas I have found five examples by Hugh Pannell, three of these dials now being in the USA.”

I’d love to hear from you about your stories, memories, opinions and ideas for columns. Use the ‘Contact’ button on the top right of this page to get in touch.

This column appeared in the Darlington & Stockton Times on Friday 9th and the Ryedale Gazette and Herald on Wednesday 7th August 2024.