Surrounded by rolling hills, lush green fields and winding rivers, the pretty village of Womersley, with its exquisite, 12th-century church of St Martin, provides a timeless setting for illustrious, Grade II*-listed Womersley Hall, which stands in 38 acres of historic gardens, parkland and woodland at the southern tip of North Yorkshire, six miles from Pontefract and 13 miles from Doncaster.
Once part of the 4,688-acre Womersley Park estate, the Hall dates from 1680, when Tobiah Harvey, a London barrister, purchased the manor and began to build the house that would become the centre of a grand family estate.
In the 18th century, three generations of Harveys significantly shaped Womersley Hall and its parkland. In the 1760s, Tobiah’s grandson, Stanhope Harvey, added a southern wing, diverted the medieval village’s main street to enhance the estate’s privacy and transformed the surrounding area into a designed landscape.
In 1797, Frances Harvey married the 3rd Baron Hawke, a descendant of Admiral Sir Edward Hawke, who defeated the French navy at the Battle of Quiberon Bay in 1759. The 3rd Baron invested heavily in the estate, enclosing Womersley Common and planting the Belt Plantation. However, financial mismanagement, including failed canal and tramway ventures, led to the auctioning of the hall’s contents to settle debts by 1820.
The 4th Baron Hawke restored stability to the estate, but his untimely death in 1869 left his teenage daughter, Frances Cassandra Harvey Hawke, as the estate’s heir. Unable to inherit the title, she nevertheless managed the estate effectively, modernising the property and supporting the local community during and after the First World War. Her death in 1921 marked the end of the Harvey Hawke era at Womersley Hall. Her grandson, Michael, 6th Earl of Rosse, inherited the estate, but the cost of maintaining such a large country house eventually proved too great a burden for the family to bear.
The 15,900sq ft house was in a parlous state of disrepair when the present owners, Stuart and Ruth Evison, bought Womersley Hall some 20 years ago and embarked on a meticulous, 10-year renovation of the house, its courtyard of outbuildings, walled gardens and parkland.
Externally, the hall’s symmetrical Georgian architecture makes a bold and elegant statement and, inside, the house is a celebration of immaculate craftsmanship, with every original feature lovingly preserved. Now, following the owners’ decision to downsize, this pristine Georgian gem is for sale through Annabel Blackett of Strutt & Parker’s country department at a guide price of £5m.
The main house offers impressive accommodation on two main floors, including a grand reception hall/dining room; a magnificent drawing room with a panelled ceiling adorned with ornate cornices and friezes; a tranquil morning room with a grand bay window; a breathtaking staircase hall with a spectacular, 17th-century stained glass window; a library with original bookcases believed to be the work of Robert Adam; plus a billiard room, two kitchens, four en-suite bedrooms, six further bedrooms and three bath/shower rooms.
Two self-contained apartments, three cottages, the Fig & Olive coffee shop and various estate lettings provide a useful annual rent-roll of about £100,000.
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