Houghton Hall (see above, south front) stands just west of the village of Sancton and south of Market Weighton. Described by David Neave as ‘The perfect Georgian country house in a beautiful parkland setting’ (Buildings of England, Yorkshire: York and the East Riding (2005, 665-666), all the houses so far mentioned in he current run of blogs are dealt with in more detail in this publication), most of the surrounding parkland remains. Again a Grade 1 listed building and built of local brick with stone dressings. Ancestors of the landed family who had this property built in the late 1760s had lived in this locality since the late Middle Ages and descendants have it as a private house today. One ancestor at the time of the English Civil Wars, 1642-1651, fought against the Parliamentary forces and spent most of the 1650s on the continent with the future Charles II. For 150 years up to 1957 the builds incorporated the areas Roman Catholic chapel.
The site of the estate stands just west of the route of the Roman road, this constructed after AD 70 when the northern boundary of the Roman Empire was pushed north from the Humber Estuary. The estate also stands just north of the site of the famous limestone quarry at North Newbald which provided building stone for many high status medieval building projects across the region including North Newbald church (‘the most complete Norman church in the Riding’ Neave p621) and Beverley Minster. All trace of this quarry is now lost although the remnants of one remain in Hotham parish to the south.
Houghton Hall and Hotham village stand on the narrowing limestone escarpment which just to the north is lost under the chalk escarpment. The limestone escarpment provided building stones of varying quality through the east Midlands, Lincolnshire and this part of East Yorkshire.