The third and last of the reports from last Friday’s walk. Beside the minor road between Little Weighton and Bentley are two information boards explaining the site of the once Risby House across the intervening dry valley. One board is all text, the other includes illustrative material including an 18th century image of the site showing a late 17th century two-storey period house facing south (see above)
. Shown in front of it are two main terraces in the valley-side with formal, geometric gardens planted thereon. Apart from anything else this shows a late ‘flowering’ of the formal garden, popular since Tudor times ahead of the change of fashion to landscaped gardens/grounds as discussed briefly in a recent blog re Baysgarth Park, Barton. Apparently in the mid 18th century a resident sought to create a more ‘landscaped’ image across the valley of which a nearby man-made lake is a surviving remnant.
The house was demolished in the late 18th century following a serious fire. Its site and the terracing survive in the permanent pasture (see below) as required by English Heritage (see blog of few weeks ago on River Hull, particularly the site of Eske medieval village).