Author name: Richard Clarke

From the early 18th century onwards the southern Yorkshire Wolds were a preferred locality for rich Hull merchants and businessmen to buy land and have built a country residence and grounds reflecting their wealth and status and, often, taking advantage of the views offered by the rolling landscape compared with the level ground of the

Sewerby Hall and Boynton Hall (s.p.b.s) are both Grade 1 ‘listed buildings’, some of the other large period houses considered recently are also Grade 1 although some are Grade 2*. The ‘listing’ of historic buildings is part of the responsibilities of the government agency Historic England. There are only three levels of listing; grade 1 (most

Sewerby Hall, an eight bay, three-storey Georgian brick-built house with panoramic views of the North Sea and standing above the rising chalk cliffs of Flamborough Head, is the jewel in the crown of the East Riding’s large period houses. The bulk of the house seen today was built in the early 18th century, the bow-fronted wings

Boynton Hall, just a few miles west of Bridlington, has a Grade 1 listing, the relevant text describing its exterior as ‘red brick with burnt brick diaper work and stone dressings, ashlar and slate roof’. The original core of the house seen above was a late-Tudor H plan house on the same site as a demolished

Thorpe Hall in the village of Rudston, west of Bridlington, (see above) is the product of various building schemes across 200 years from the late 17th century. It is (I think) sometimes open to the public but beyond the house are extensive facilities for camping/caravanning, horse riding etc. In his detailed description of Thorpe Hall

Across the southern part of the ‘High Wolds’ (northern half of Yorkshire Wolds) four large period house all stand on roughly the same latitude, Sledmere House (see above), Thorpe Hall, Rudston, Boynton Hall and Sewerby Hall, the middle two standing in the ‘great valley’ of the Gypsey Race which has carved a west-east valley across