Gibside: The curious roofless castle where The King's ancestor was kidnapped
Gibside flourished under coal baron George Bowes but his heiress daughter, Mary Eleanor, nearly lost it all to her deceitful second husband.
Gibside is a rarity in this series in so far as it still stands. However, it is currently impossible to get inside the walls of this once-magnificent hall because its roof was removed more 100 years ago.
Between 1936-9, its woodlands were felled and when Country Life photographed it in 1955, the skeleton of the building was settling nicely into the landscape, or, rather, the landscape was settling nicely into it.
The story of Gibside’s demise lies both in its location — its Capability Brown-designed gardens look towards the UK's 16th largest and ever-expanding city, Newcastle-upon-Tyne — and the classic tale of being 'surplus to requirement'.
An estate has been recorded on the land that Gibside occupies since at least the 11th century, but the ruins you see today date from the Jacobean era, when Scotland’s James VI — the son of Mary, Queen of Scots — succeeded his cousin, Elizabeth I. Sir William Blakiston was responsible for building the vast new structure, leaving his mark well and truly on the front of the house by installing his and the newly-crowned James I of Britain’s coats of arms proudly over the main entrance porch — carvings which can still be seen.
In 1760, Sir George Bowes, a prominent businessman and MP, died, and left his entire estate to his 11-year-old daughter, Mary Eleanor. This included Gibside, which he had painstakingly tamed. He’d added all manner of walks and follies to the land, including a magnificent Banqueting House, a chapel, mausoleum (all said to be the work of James Paine), and a monumental column to Liberty.
His estate (including Streatham Castle in Co Durham) was worth about £600,000 (an eye-watering £105,000,000 today), meaning the very young, very impressionable child suddenly became one of the most, if not the most, eligible person in the entire country. One stipulation in the will was that Mary Eleanor’s husband should take the Bowes name. And so, in 1767, on the day of her 18th birthday, Mary Eleanor, having been courted since she was a mere 11-years-old, married John Lyon, 9th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne. Her gargantuan wealth ensured her father’s wish was honoured, and the couple styled their new surname Lyon-Bowes (it was later changed to Bowes-Lyon). It wasn't, by all accounts, the happiest of unions. Their union did, however, produce five children.
Lord Strathmore died unexpectedly, in 1776, at sea and what then happened to his widow, still fantastically wealthy, would put the scriptwriters of any historical drama (or Eastenders) to shame.
Before the death of her husband, the deeply unhappy Lady Strathmore had been having an affair with someone called George Gray, and was pregnant with his child.
Enter: Andrew Robinson Stoney, an Anglo-Irish MP, high sheriff, and criminal who, having heard about the Dowager Countess's condition, made it his mission to steal her fortune. Firstly, Stoney sent numerous and scandalous stories about his victim to the Morning Post — which they duly published. Secondly, he mailed in outraged letters to the newspaper defending the Dowager Countess. Thirdly, he challenged the editor of the paper to a duel, which he then appeared to lose.
Blithely unaware, but still reluctantly, Mary Eleanor agreed to the 'dying' man's wish. To marry him. He was, apparently, carried to the altar on a stretcher.
Stoney, now 'recovered', quickly imprisoned his new wife at Gibside and pressured her to hand over her wealth to him. She was rescued, four years later, by a new maid, Mary Morgan, and Stoney was imprisoned (after a single kidnapping attempt gone very wrong).
Mary Eleanor died in 1800 at the age of 59 and she was buried next to Mary Morgan.
Gibside flourished under the ownership of Mary Eleanor’s son, John, the 10th Earl, though he was to be the last in his line to lavish it with any attention. Centuries later, Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother (born Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon) remarked that she remembered picnicking on the estate in the early 1900s — shortly before it was occupied by the Women’s Land Army for the duration of the First World War.
Unable to drag Gibside into the 20th century, the Bowes-Lyon family removed the roof in 1920, and gifted what was left to the National Trust in 1974.
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