Hornby Castle

This was a visit of two distinct halves. On a commanding position in rolling landscape a few miles west of the A1M and just north of Bedale in the Vale of Mowbray, are the remains of Hornby Castle. First we visited the 18^th landscape created by his descendant Robert D’arcy, the 4^th Earl of Holderness. There is firm evidence he employed Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown as he had at his other three main sites, Aston Hall, near Sheffield, Sion Hill in London and Shillington Bedfordshire, creating a typical Brownian style landscape complete with a string of lakes designed to look like a serpentine river when viewed from the castle above, the derelict ‘Garden House’, (in fact built as a banqueting house) and ‘eyecatcher’ farms on the horizon. The Earls’s friend, the Revd William Mason, author of the poem ‘The English Garden’ and his advisor on things aesthetic as well as spiritual, was also involved in the creation of the landscape. Whilst we do not know exactly the roles taken by Mason and Brown, the likelihood of their involvement contributes to the significance of the landscape.

After this Erik Matthews, Fieldwork Officer of the Archeological Society of Durham and Northumberland, revealed to us that hidden in the woods beyond the gothic-style Bowling Green House, archeological excavations carried out by his team of volunteers have discovered fascinating evidence of a 15^th century vicarage and a much earlier medieval moated castle built on an earlier late Saxon timber hall.  Notes on the history and maps will be provided for this event.