The unpublished photographs of a gargantuan Victorian mansion whose bulldozed remains were dumped in its own ornamental lake

Most of the grand, stately homes ‘lost’ in the 20th century were victims of war, taxes or fire — and occasionally all three. Warter Priory, however, bucked the trend(s).

Situated in the bucolic Yorkshire Wolds, the property that Country Life arrived to photograph in about 1905 was not actually a priory, but a vastly extended 16th-century house.

'Warter' was said to be an Anglo-Saxon word for 'felons' or 'gallows tree', or, simply, a reference to the abundance of water in the area; the 'Priory' part was a nod to a lost Augustine Priory once situated about a mile away.

In 1878, Josslyn Pennington, 5th Lord Muncaster, sold the priory to Charles Henry Wilson of Wilson's Steam Ship Company.

At the time, Wilson’s leviathan enterprise was responsible for the UK’s largest, and therefore highly profitable, trans-Atlantic cargo fleet. The acquisition was more personal than business-minded: Wilson's family had been tenants on the land for centuries and his grandfather was born on the estate in 1746, later moving to Hull's docks to work as a lighterman. The victorious Charles returned, two generations on, as Lord of the Manor. He wasted no time.

Wilson and his wife, the imposing Florence Wellesley, eldest daughter of a nephew of the Duke of Wellington, got to work greatly extending and enhancing the house. A vast baronial hall clad in impressive, carved wood panels sat behind a new porte-cochere and clock tower — ensuring visitors were awestruck as soon as they arrived. Impressive staircases in oak and carved marble were installed. By the end of the works, Warters boasted about 100 rooms, 30 of which were bedrooms for visiting guests.

Wilson, who was also the Liberal MP for Kingston-upon-Hull, the East Riding’s Justice of the Peace, and Deputy Lieutenant, was a philanthropist who busied himself with many charitable deeds in the area. However, one of these, was the closing of the village pub — the fabulously-named Creeping Kate Inn — on account of his strong belief in abstinence. This belief saw him introduce a bill in Parliament for the closure of all public houses on Sundays.

Wilson died in 1907 leaving his widow to entertain alone. She hosted regular shoots, one of which was attended by Sir Winston Churchill, and reportedly 'terrorised' her estate workers, frequently conducting spot inspections on their cottages.

By 1927, Florence's health was failing and the now deeply-fashionable mansion was put up for sale. Against all the odds, including the fact that she demanded being laid to rest on the estate, Warters sold to the Hon George Vestey, who had made his own fortune in the meat trade.

Unusually for the time, Vestey had the financial means to keep the house in the Victorian manner to which it had become accustomed. To this end, he retained a vast staff to keep his vast mansion, its gardens and estate running like clockwork.

When he died, in 1968, Warters' valuable land was sold to the Marquess and Marchioness of Normanby. The house was surplus to their requirement.

Four years later, a local newspaper reported that it was to be bulldozed and the remains dumped in its own ornamental lake. Initially branded 'fatuous', on May 5, 1972, Country Life wrote about a 4½-hour fire sale of fixtures and fittings: businessman L. W. Hill of Chesterfield bought the Great Hall's oak panelling, the marble staircase, an oak staircase, a marble chimneypiece and a minstrel’s gallery for a £1,515 (about £18,460). Warter Priory was flattened shortly afterwards and, as the newspaper had said would happen, used to fill in the lake.

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