Whereas, particularly on the southern Yorkshire Wolds, there was a cultural trend for those who achieved wealth and status through business and trade in Hull to move out to ‘the country’ and to build or extend ‘country seats’ (see Allison, K. Hull gent seeks country residence), on the south bank of the Humber no parallel trend occurred. Those who gained considerable wealth through Barton’s industrial revolution, particularly brickyard and tile-work owners built their ‘posh’ new houses in, or at least very near, the town, as did, for example, the owner of the basket making business in Barrow in the form of Down Hall. The large houses built out in the countryside after Parliamentary Enclosure were farmhouses, often for tenant farmers, rather than rural retreats.
A leading high status dynasty for some centuries was the Nelthorpe family. From the 16th to the early 19th centuries they owned Baysgarth House in Barton (s.l.b.) but sold this and had built South Ferriby Hall (see above). This brick built house of a rather individual design commanded views up the middle and upper Humber but was built on low land at the foot of the Lincs. Wolds rather than on higher land to the south east which had been, since Parliamentary Enclosure in the late 18th century, in their ownership. Anyway the family’s principal ‘seat’ had become Scawby Hall near Brigg (not to be considered here).
The pleasure grounds of South Ferriby Hall have been eroded away by tidal action, evidence of these and their subsequent loss comes from the researches and writings of Raymond Carey of South Ferriby. A small circular plantation higher up the Wold valley side, now surrounded by arable land, suggests that there may have been some initial emparking but there is no evidence of this from early O.S. maps. However, whereas the view of this plantation from the Hall is today blocked by a linear plantation along the lower Wold slopes, there is considerable evidence that this plantation is a product of the late 19th century and previously the Hall would have had open views south-east and up the hillside.