Home Farm, Hartforth: The perfect marriage of sophisticated tastes and a great architect 'at the height of his powers'

Hartforth is a hamlet that stands a few miles north of Richmond above a little valley with a beck, the most northern tributary of the River Swale. Running through it is Jagger Lane, a road once busy with packhorses exchanging lead from Swaledale for salt and coal from ports on the River Tees. This once bustling scene has given way to a placid Georgian landscape and the surrounding grassy slopes are enlivened by field barns and other small buildings given a Gothick dress during the Regency. They were perhaps inspired by the spectacular Gothic Temple at Aske Hall, an adjoining estate to the south, which was designed for Sir Conyers Darcy in 1745 by Daniel Garrett, and Garrett’s coeval Gothick Culloden Tower at Richmond and Gillingwood Hall in the same valley. All this has given the Hartforth estate a Gothick genius loci that was a part-inspiration for the new house completed there in 2008 by Sir Josslyn Gore-Booth to the design of Digby Harris of Francis Johnson and Partners.

Home Farm is a Janus-faced new house in the spirit of Castle Ward, Co Down, or Castle Goring in West Sussex. It sports a Gothick façade towards the valley landscape (Fig 1) and a more severe Palladian entrance elevation (Fig 2) enclosed by historic farm buildings, including a listed cart shed, granary and a horse engine shed. This format was suggested by a set of drawings by Francis Johnson who, when awaiting his army call-up in 1943, had dreamed of an ‘Ideal House’ for himself and his lifelong partner Edward Ingram. It reflected their different characters: Gothick for Ingram and more restrained Palladian for Johnson. Like many youthful jeux d’esprit, it never made it to construction, but the discovery of the drawings in the firm’s architectural archive was an inspiration for Johnson’s business partner and successor Mr Harris when he was asked by Sir Josslyn to design a small new country house on his estate in North Yorkshire in 2004. Planning permission was unanimously granted for the out-of-the-ordinary design.

The scheme, however, had been long in gestation. Sir Josslyn inherited the Hartforth property unexpectedly more than 50 years ago at the nadir of the post-war English country estate. It had been the childhood home of his grandmother Mary, Lady Barnard, under whose welcoming roof and battlements at Raby Castle in Co Durham he had been born and brought up. Hartforth Hall, a Georgian house extended with the coal money of her Straker father, remained the home of his childless widowed great-aunt Mrs Cradock when he inherited the farms and woodland. It was by then reduced to characteristic post-war decay, its contents largely dispersed and dry rot rampaging.

The future of Hartforth did not look assured in the 1970s. Shortly after, Sir Josslyn found himself shouldering another heavier responsibility in the form of Lissadell, the Greek Revival family seat in Co Sligo. It was then in a state of near dereliction, with a leaking roof and rotten structural timbers. The remarkable story of Lissadell’s revival will be told in a future article, but the Gore-Booths eventually sold the property and, in December 2003, returned to the North-East of England. By then, Hartforth Hall had been sold and was being run as a small hotel. In the event, the focus was soon the Home Farm, overlooking the hamlet with its little green.

As far back as 1984, Sir Josslyn’s imagination had been fired by a small, but almost evangelical exhibition ‘Classical Survival: Classical Revival’ at the Building Centre, London WC1, showcasing the then underappreciated architectural achievements of Raymond Erith, Johnson, John Simpson and Quinlan Terry. Soon after, at Mr Harris’s suggestion, John Cornforth published three articles on Johnson (Country Life, October, 11, 18 and 25, 1984), who was then at the height of his game at Garrowby and Sunderlandwick in East Yorkshire and Settrington in North Yorkshire. These and other publications, sowed the seed that was to come to fruition at Hartforth 20 years later.

Sir Josslyn’s feeling that a manageable new house designed by the Francis Johnson Practice might be the best policy was confirmed when, as a Raby trustee, he recommended Mr Harris for the major refurbishment of Selaby Hall on the Raby estate. The result was impressive. They first met on site at Hartforth in 2004 on a snowy Ash Wednesday and agreed that a ‘model farm’ would complement the listed farm buildings. The adjacent farmhouse was not listed, being a plain stone structure with a sole claim to historical fame: that the young William Hague had been the tenant there for six months when first elected MP for Richmond.

The concept of a miniature Palladian villa with a centralised plan in the manner of the architects Sir Robert Taylor, Sir Edward Lovett Pearce, Thomas Ivory or John Carr seemed the perfect solution. Sir Josslyn, having a strong interest in architecture and Georgian culture in general (he was a trustee and treasurer of the Georgian Group for many years), played a large role in the conception. A plan was gradually conceived with a central geometrical staircase (the spandrels being useful for services), flanked by drawing room, dining room and, not a library as in Taylor’s houses, but a large modern kitchen. It led to a perfect partnership between client and architect. As Mr Harris commented: ‘It is rare for client and architect to be completely in accord, but when it does happen it makes for the happiest of jobs.’

This constructive symbiosis is manifested at Hartforth in both the excellence of the general concept and the perfection of every detail. It is not an exaggeration to say that Home Farm is an architectural masterpiece of the 18th-century revival. This has been recognised by the Georgian Group Award for the ‘best new building in a Georgian Context’ and Hartforth’s inclusion in the revised ‘Buildings of England’ volume Yorkshire: The North Riding (2023), where it is described as Johnson’s ‘most successful North Riding design… a composite of Georgian and Gothick ably brought to life by his successor Mr Harris’. The contractor responsible for the excellent construction work was Steve Mellows from Castle Bytham in Lincolnshire.

An integral part of the scheme was the surrounding valley landscape, which has been treated as a seamless extension of the Georgian parkland around Hartforth Hall. Before work began at Home Farm, the opposite side of the beck was marred by an unsightly pig shed. This was demolished and the area grassed and dotted with clumps of trees. Mike Ibbotson of Colvin & Moggridge was the landscape consultant, but Sir Josslyn had a large personal input.

The informal avenue on the central south axis, derived from Sledmere, East Yorkshire, was his concept. Peter and Sal Sharp, for whom Mr Harris had remodelled Borwick Lodge in Lancashire, initially advised on the planting scheme of the garden, which includes the courtyard and a formal layout to the east with a central stone-edged canal, leading to the orchard with a Gothick folly, screening the pre-existing farm cottages, with later help from Prunella Scarlett and Debbie Collier. The new and extended landscaping at Hartforth provides a perfect setting for the new house and helps incorporate it into the historic surroundings.

The design of the house faithfully fulfils Johnson’s ‘Ideal’ on a larger scale, with a castellated south front complete with balconied bow overlooking the new landscape and ogee-headed windows, constrasted by a severer Palladian courtyard elevation with a giant pediment enclosing a Diocletian window. Extra distinction is achieved by the use of sandstone from Witton Fell Quarry in Wensleydale for the exteriors, complementing the rubble of the subsidiary retained ranges.

There is a Doric cornice derived from Robert Adam’s Lansdowne House in London, in the rectangular entrance hall (Fig 3). A pair of symmetrical niches flank the door to the central full-height staircase hall beyond. The plan of the stair is a Pythagorean Ellipse, a form reflective of Sir Josslyn’s love of geometry at school (Fig 7). There are subtle Gothick touches in here, such as the arched steel handrail and the blank arches at first-floor level. The stairs are a marvel of cantilevered Tadcaster limestone. Another feature of all the main rooms is the superb mahogany joinery, by Houghtons of York with French polishing by David Podmore: the panelled doors and the curving hand rail of the stair which, in Johnsonian manner, ends in an elegant scroll inlaid with an ivory disc. (The architect kept an old Victorian billiard ball for this purpose, sliced as required.)

The north-south axis is continued in the central D-shaped dining room (Fig 4). This room has a Gothick ceiling embellished with cusped arcs. The new stucco work in here, as throughout the rooms, is by Stevensons of Norwich. An especially splendid feature is the parquetry timber floor, reflecting the ceiling pattern. Such luxurious parquetry is a revived craft instigated by the restoration of the George IV floors at Windsor Castle. It was executed by Weldon Flooring.

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Another eye-catching feature is the set of Gothick dining chairs made by Pascal Silvestre of York, based on an 18th-century design, which were first discovered in a local saleroom. They were painted appropriately by Charles Hesp, who was responsible for all the specialist painting in the main rooms. Tom Helme, who made Farrow & Ball paint into a national brand, came out of retirement to advise on decoration.

To the west is the simple Classical kitchen, treated as a principal room in the way of most modern houses, with a Serlian arch into the pantry (Fig 6). Beyond in a retained single-storey range, with reused Yorkshire sliding sash windows from the old farmhouse, is the sitting room, back hall and laundry.

The whole of the east side of the house is taken up by the drawing room (Fig 9) with perfect Palladian proportions, 36ft by 18ft and 12ft high, with a canted bay overlooking the east garden (Fig 5). This room was designed to contain a display of paintings in elaborate Florentine frames collected by Sir Robert Gore-Booth on a second Grand Tour of Italy in 1837; they are a survival of the collection originally in the Picture Gallery at Lissadell. The chimneypiece was designed by Mr Harris and carved by Jose Sarabia; the marbled painting was executed by Mr Hesp.

On the first floor are four principal bedrooms and bathrooms, all with lovely views from the windows, but the final surprise of the house is the top floor, which comprises Sir Josslyn’s library with fitted bookcases and the Diocletian window overlooking the courtyard, village green and all comings and goings. There are also views over the landscape from delightful round windows (Fig 8).

Home Farm, Hartforth, is a remarkable creation: the joint work of a client with sophisticated tastes and a traditionally skilled architect at the height of his powers. The whole concept with its designed landscape and beautifully finished and arranged interiors is in the best English country-house tradition. It has Irish touches too; not only the retained contents from Lissadell, but the general character of a compact Georgian house.

The greatest tribute of appreciation comes, perhaps, from the walkers who have replaced the pack horses on nearby Jagger Lane and over the picturesque stone-arched bridge across the beck: they tend to think the house is 18th century and has been there for 200 years, rather than 20.

This feature originally appeared in the September 30, 2026, print edition of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.