The Big House: The Story of a Country House and its Family

A drawing dated 1751 of the design for the principal elevation shows the new house to have been a solid comfortable building, three storeys high and of seven bays. It was built in brick with rather heavy stone facings and rusticated windows, and was more typical of the kind of gentleman’s house that would have been erected in the Queen Anne period. A detailed inventory made in January 1755, listing each of the rooms and their contents, shows it to have had eight bedrooms, two dressing rooms, a dining room, drawing room and study (‘my Own Room’), a hall, with a service area which consisted of two kitchens, servants’ hall, butler’s pantry, servants’ bedrooms, a laundry, dairy and brewhouse, and extensive cellars.

This Pile is polite! Free from Frogs & from Dykes

And was raised at th’Expense of Worthy Dick Sykes

The Pond, Full in view is clear of all Stench

Stock’d with Mackrel, with Carp and gold bellyed Tench,

The Master is generous! Free from envy and pride

Loves a Pipe in his Mouth, A Friend by his side.

wrote Richard’s brother ‘Parson’ in another of his poems entitled ‘Upon the New Structure at Sledmere & the Master’.44

Richard’s inventory gives a clear idea of how the house was furnished. Since carpets are listed in a number of the rooms one must presume that where they are not mentioned, the floor was simply wooden boards. Such was the case in Richard’s sitting room, which is referred to as ‘My Own Room’. It had ‘A Large Stove Grate, A fine open Fender, A Shovel, Tongs & poker, A Sconce Looking Glass, and A Marble Chimney Piece & Hearth’. There were ‘Six Wallnutt Tree Chairs Leather Bottoms, One Liber Stool Cover’d with Leather, One Wallnutt Tree Arm Chair Ditto’. There was ‘A Mahogany Square Table & Tea Chest, One fine Large in Laid Scruetoire & Bookcase, One Mahogany Shaving Stand, with a Glass, A Large Chest mounted with Brass two drawers, and set upon pedestals, A Mahogany Round table a yard Diameter, A Perspective Looking Glass and an Iron Holland Chest’.45 There appear to have been no pictures. Those were reserved for his bedroom, described as the ‘Lodging Room Over Kitchen’, which was delightfully comfortable.

The bed was a four-poster ‘with Mahogeny Poles, Blue Merrine Furniture, two Window Curtains of the same to draw up, a Feather Bed, a Check Cover, a Bolster, two Pillows, a Check Mattress, Three Blanketts and a Blue & White Linnen Quilt’. In this room there were ‘Two Old Bedside Carpets’. The other furniture consisted of ‘an Arm Chair Leather Bottom, Six Mahogeny Chairs Covered with Blue Merrine with Check Covers, A Lib. Stool with a Leather Bottom, A Wallnutt Tree Sconce Looking Glass, A Close Stool with a Pott, A Leather Seat, A Bureau, An Oval Table of Mahogeny, A Wainscott Reading Machine, A Large Mahogeny Book Case with Sash Doors and presses below, A Little Camp Bed with Furniture compleat and A Dressing Table with drawers & a Swing Looking glass’. Then there were ‘Three very fine Blue & White Delph Jarrs with Tops, two Chocolate Cups and saucers, 2 Milk potts, 4 Shoker Basons’. Finally he mentions ‘three Small pictures and My Uncle Mark Kirkby’s Picture’.46

The latter, a half-length portrait, which today hangs in the Red Bedroom at Sledmere and shows him looking rather pompous dressed in his blue coat, has an amusing anecdote attached to it. While my Grandfather, Mark Sykes, was engaged in researching an unpublished Sykes family history, his house carpenter, an old boy called John Truslove, once told him that when he was a very young man and had been employed to move some pictures in the house, he had slipped while taking down the Kirkby portrait and was obliged, with some trepidation, to tell the housekeeper, ‘I’ve cut Mark Kirkby’s throat!’47 To confirm the truth of this story I climbed up a ladder and gently touched the lace bands round his neck. Sure enough I felt the place where a gash had been repaired.

The only other pictures mentioned by Richard in this inventory were ‘Two pictures’ in the Servants’ Hall, ‘Three Black & White prints’ in the Store Room, ‘my Bro. Joseph Sykes picture’ in the Crimson Dressing Room, and ‘My Niece Polly’s Picture’, which hung over the chimneypiece of the dressing room adjoining ‘my Best Lodging Room’. This is where he would have kept his clothes, also minutely catalogued under the heading ‘My Wearing Linnen’ and including such finery as ‘fine Point Ruffles, Dresden Ruffles, fine Mechlin Ruffles, Fine New Holland Shirts, Ruffled Shirts, A Velvet Suit, Coat, Waistcoat & Breeches, a Light Gray Coat Lined with Crimson Silk Trimed with Gold Lace, a Flowered Silk pair of Breeches, etc, etc.’48

So proud did Richard soon become of his new house that he would take great umbrage if it came to his notice that strangers to the neighbourhood had been to visit the much grander house at Castle Howard but had not been to Sledmere. He was thus delighted when, in April, 1755, he was approached by Edwin Lascelles, one of the richest men in Yorkshire, who was about to start work on building a new house at Harewood, near Leeds. He too had inherited an old manor house, Gawthorpe Hall, and was looking to Richard for advice on how to go about starting anew. ‘I am going into Mortar Pell-Mell,’ he wrote, ‘and shall stand much in need of the experience and assistance of such Adepts as you. The first step, I am told, is to provide the main materials; & wood & Iron being of the number, I flatter myself I shall learn from you, the Lowest price of the latter.’49 Drawing on the wealth of experience he had gained in the previous four years, Richard’s advice to Lascelles was to start by appointing a first-class foreman to oversee the work and to fix upon a plan from which he should not vary. He should then make sure that all the materials he needed were not only on hand, but prepared. Finally he should fortify himself ‘with a multitude of patience’.50

Though the house at Sledmere may have been finished, the work of landscaping continued. An undated design, probably from the mid-1750s, shows Richard to have contemplated the creation of an oval carriage drive in front of the house, between it and the Fish Pond, with planting to the west of the house to include a formal ride up to a garden temple.51 This work was never carried out, but in January, 1756, he wrote to Lord Robert Manners sending his ‘best respects to my Lord James and thank him for his kind wishes of the Improvement and Increase of my Nursery. I have been planting and transplanting for these six weeks past the Season, for that business has turned out very favourable and my trees come forward and grow almost beyond all imaginary expectations and great pleasure when I view them.’52

He also had a thriving kitchen garden of which he was especially proud. Back in December, 1752, he had written to Richard Lawson, a broker friend in London, asking for advice on buying a glass house: ‘Not having acquaintance with any in or about London, I hope you will excuse the trouble in desiring you to recommend one that will serve me with a Good Comodity. I have only got at present a few sash frames finished which gives me an opportunity of taking an Exact Measure of the Squares … & as they may be larger than Common I could like to have it of Crown Glass to be run or cast somewhat stronger and better if allowed a half penny a foot more than the usual price …’53 By August, 1760, he was able to write to his brother Joseph, ‘I perhaps may cut upwards of a hundred Pine Apples this year’54 and when he went on his annual trip to Harrogate to drink the waters, cargoes of nectarines, peaches, plums and melons followed him there.55

With the house and gardens completed, Richard needed a new wife to share his good fortune, and on 1 November, 1757, he married for the second time. He had not had to look far, for his bride was his first cousin, Anna Maria Edge, the widow of a Hull merchant, Thomas Edge. She was described in a local newspaper as being ‘a Lady of the most distinguished merit, & blessed with every amiable qualification that can adorn her sex’.56 She also had three children, Dicky, Bella and Kitty, to whom Richard appears to have been a most affectionate stepfather. ‘If at any time you should think my advice may be of Service,’ he told Kitty, ‘upon application I will give it to you honestly and sincerely to the best of my judgement, just the same as if you was my own Child.’57

Comfortably settled in his new home, Richard immersed himself in the life of a country squire. ‘Gentlemen from Hull hunted with me,’ ran his diary entry for 23 February, 1756, and on the subsequent days through until the 29th he wrote, ‘Ditto. Breakfasted, dined and suppd with me.’58 He hunted hares with a pack of harriers and frequently alluded to his runs in his letters. ‘My brother Parson and his wife came to see us the 11th of this month,’ he wrote to Bella Edge on 23 October, 1759, ‘and returned to Hull on the 21st. The day before they were a-Hunting in the Lawn with very great diversion. Killed and Eat four Brace of Hares and two Couple of Rabbits.’59 In December he told his niece Polly, ‘I have been able to mount my Hunter and ride a Chaise. Your Aunt and Kitty goes in the Coach a Hunting when the weather will permit. Once, twice or three times a week I accompany them therein to the field and back.’60

The daily entries in his pocket books show that scarcely a day went by without him entertaining somebody, either to lunch or dinner. If it wasn’t Parson Paul, then it was family or his tenants and neighbours. No doubt they relished their visits to Sledmere, for Richard was nothing if not a bon-vivant. They would have expected to find copious amounts of game on the table, such as hare, partridge and venison, but there were often surprises in store. In October, 1759, for example, he thanked his Danzig brother-in-law, Randolph Hobman, ‘for the kind present of the bagg of Sturgeon’,61 while in December he received ‘a forequarter of very fine Lamb and some Oysters’62 from ‘Brother Parson Sykes’. The same year he wrote to Joseph Denison in London to thank him for the olives that had been sent and proved ‘very good and acceptable’, and to order 12lbs of chocolate. He sent bottled mushrooms and potted hare to his friends in London, but a gift of potted char sent to him by his brother Parson got left behind in Hull, his servant Bob ‘not knowing what it was’.63

Your Melon was good

The Flesh red as blood

The flavour & juices how fine!

Here’s a health to ‘Squire Sykes’

Whom no man dislikes

I’ll drink it as oft as I dine.

wrote Parson Walmisley from Malton on 11 August, 1759.64 He would have found no shortage of drink with which to charge his glass. The new Cellar contained ‘twenty-four New Hogsheads Iron Bound, seven half Ditto, ten Twenty Gallon casks, Eight Gantrys’65 and it was well stocked, for Port was not the only drink for which Richard had a fondness. In November, 1759, he wrote of having received fifty-nine dozen bottles of wine from Robert Norris, and in the following January told him ‘I have been inspecting into my Stock of Madeira and to oblige you I have sent you seven Doz. by my Market cart … and can spare you 5 Doz. more.’66 This was in addition to eight dozen bottles of ‘Old Hock’ which he had pledged to spare him from his cellar only a few days earlier, while February found him writing once more to Robert Norris, inquiring anxiously, ‘When do you draw off the Red Wine? I must have some fit to drink about next October.’67 For the chosen few there was a rare treat, the ‘water of life’:‘I got one Mr Richard Lawson, a Broker in London,’ he wrote to Joseph Denison in November, 1759, ‘to Buy me two or three bottles of Usquaba. The best of my remembrance he bought it of one Burdon, famous at that time, and having none Left desire you will buy me two Quart bottles of it, the best and send it by the first ship to Hull.’68 The good life that Richard was enjoying is reflected in his portrait, which he commissioned from Henry Pickering, an artist who liked to paint people ‘in character’. Richard was rich and successful, he had a delightful new house, and he now had an instant family. Childless himself, Richard had a warm and affectionate nature which reveals itself best in his relationship with two close members of his family, his half-brother Joseph and his favourite niece, Polly, portraits of whom hung in his dressing room.

Joseph Sykes was Richard’s junior by seventeen years and was the product of their father’s second marriage to Martha Donkin. Since he never really knew his father, who died in 1726 when he was only three, Joseph had always looked to his older brother for support. He worked in the family business and Richard thought so highly of him that in 1753, when Joseph had just turned thirty, he made him a partner. ‘I have turned over the Charge of the Counting House,’ he wrote to his brother-in-law, Randolph Hobman in August, 1753, ‘to my Brother … for I am mostly in the Country when in Health.’69 That summer Richard went to a lot of trouble to help smooth the path for his brother to get married to a Miss Dorothy ‘Dolly’ Twigge, against the express wishes of his mother. ‘I observe that Mr Jos. Sykes’, wrote the prospective bride’s father, Nicholas Twigge, in June, 1753, ‘has communicated to you what passed at his last visits betwixt him, myself and Dolly, the Substance of which was that he made an offer of himself of which I disapproved but my Daughter accepted … I always thought the consent of Parents and nearest relations necessary for the happiness of the young ones.’70 He did, however, go on to say that he believed ‘as do you, that their affections are mutually engaged and so engaged that if I was now to attempt to break the affair, I should be under the greatest fear for the consequences’. He finished by asking ‘In the meantime if Mrs Sykes has any particular reason why she would not have her son’s marriage to take place, I should be glad to know it …’

It turned out that Joseph’s mother did indeed have very strong objections, which Richard laid out in his reply. ‘She says the frequent Headaches your daughter had at Hull must frequently disable her from looking over her family, that her son’s Industry must be spent at the discretion of Servants, and that she has instances in her family of great Miscarriages from the Mistress being Sickly … indeed there seems so great an aversion that it will be impossible to get over it. I need not tell you how bad a prospect there is where the Mother is so averse to the Lady.’71 Richard did not give up, however, for he could not bear to see Joseph so unhappy, and in the end he persuaded both sets of parents to allow the marriage, which took place in June, 1754 and turned out to be a very happy one. In spite of Joseph’s mother’s fears that Dolly’s health would lead to her having endless miscarriages, she gave birth to seven children, all of whom survived into adulthood, and she lived to the ripe old age of sixty-nine.

Richard’s niece was the only daughter of his younger brother, Parson Sykes, the Revd Mark Sykes, Rector of Roos, and although she was christened Maria, her Uncle always affectionately referred to her as Polly. His correspondence with her shows him to have taken an almost paternal interest in her upbringing. For example, in a letter to her dated 2 July, 1753, when she was fourteen, he gently chastised her for her last letter, which contained little more than ‘compliments love & duty’, expressing hope that ‘your next will be more entertaining … by giving me a description of your Journey as well as the Country Situation and prospect from your friend’s House and Garden’; he offered her advice on healthy eating – ‘The latter abounds with fruit. I make no doubt but you have been tempted to taste thereof. A little at proper times may be both good and wholesome as too much hurtful. I hope you are so prudent as to require no reminding you of that or anything else which may contribute either to your health or benefit’, and made a few suggestions of a more personal nature – ‘You will be very observing to give your friend as little trouble as possible, and do you mind to lay by your things in a careful manner and not to litter up your room with them. The one is commendable, the latter a sluttish and an indolent disposition and an unpardonable fault in a young lady.’72

A pastel portrait of Polly, done when she was in her early teens, shows her seated on a red stool wearing a white dress with a blue sash. She has thick curly brown hair to her shoulders and a sweet intelligent face wearing a mischievous smile, in which one can detect a touch of the ‘gidiness’ to which her uncle referred in his next letter. The time had come, he said, to cast this off ‘and become more Circumspect and thoughtful’. He showed his pious nature when he urged her not to forget her daily prayers, nor to ‘repeat them as a Girl at School does her Lessen but in a most humble posture with a devout Mind in such a manner as will be most acceptable to that Good and Gracious God your Creator’. He ended the letter ‘God preserve you Bless you and make you a good Woman.’73

When Polly was twenty, she was courted by and became engaged to John de Ponthieu, the eldest son of Josias de Ponthieu, the head of a successful Linen trading company, based in London but with strong links in Hull. It was a good match, the young man having a reputation for being ‘lively and active’ and ‘indefatigable in business’.74 He was also well-off, having an inheritance of £6,000, which being added to Polly’s expectations of £4,000 enabled them to begin life on the not insubstantial sum of £10,000. They would have a house in London in Friday Street, and the free use of his family’s two villas, one on the outskirts of London, the other in Sir Thomas Egerton’s park near Manchester.

It was quite clearly the intention of Polly’s future father-in-law to keep a close eye on the young couple, and he set down his advice to them in no uncertain terms. He exhorted them ‘not to set out in an expensive way, to have every day a regular table of two dishes with vegetables & fruit pyes, & for desert the common fruit in season – to have no more servants than what are useful, a coachman, a footman, a cook, a chambermaid & the housekeeper; to dine and sup out very seldom, except with select friends with whom we make no ceremony; & who afford great satisfaction & pleasure & little expense; for I put it down as a known maxim that no person can receive much company & treat in an elegant manner but they must have great anxiety & trouble which overbalances the pleasure such company can afford them; besides the expense which is always considerable, everybody vying who shall exceed in luxury, or as they call it Genteel Taste.’75

‘Tho’ my Vanity will not permit me to think myself dirt yet I must acknowledge in point of fortune Polly might have done better,’ John wrote to her father, Parson, who appears to have at first opposed the match, ‘yet in Birth, Virtue and Honesty, I will give up to none.’76 Uncle Richard, on the other hand, was delighted and soon after her wedding on 5 June, 1759, wrote her a charming letter in which he reminded her of the particular care and regard which he had always entertained for her and her happiness. He hoped that her husband would find that the marriage state was ‘a Heaven upon Earth’. ‘Now my Dears,’ he continued, ‘… May the Day of your Marriage continue to the day of your Deaths, that you may Enjoy not only all the Happyness this world can afford but also all those in that which is to come. Our sincere Love waits upon your Father … and all the Families of your New Relations unknown to us and it will give us great pleasure if at any time their Affairs will permitt them to come here to partake of my One Dish which is a Friendly and Hearty welcome, and if any of the gentlemen like Hunting, perhaps I can in the Season here entertain them both as to the Country and Diversion. I wrote to your Pappa at Hull how we celebrated the day here at night. I exhibited some fireworks. We received the cakes and gloves for which we return you thanks for your kind remembrance of us both.’77

What hope there was for these two young people! A pair of portraits painted on the occasion of their marriage show her clutching a posy of roses, looking elegant and pretty, and him dressed in a coat edged with gold braid, positively oozing bonhomie and self-confidence. They moved to London from where John wrote rapturously to his father-in-law soon after the wedding, ‘from my Wife, my Servants, my Coach and my horses, one may truly say I’m a Lucky Dog’.78 He seemed particularly pleased with his mode of transport. ‘Our Equipage is as genteel a one as any I’ve seen, not Gaudy but gay; it’s painted Crimson mosaick; a pair of good horses, bays; they cost seventy guineas.’79 He also dwelt with great emphasis upon ‘their Assembly’. Assemblies were all the rage in London at the time. ‘There is not a street in London free from them,’ wrote Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, ‘and some spirited ladies go to seven in a night.’80 These gatherings, which mixed conversation and cards with dancing, took place in the evening, and while they had begun their life in the early part of the century as quite small affairs, they had since developed into something much bigger, with the numbers of those attending running into the hundreds. ‘We have at length concluded the Assembly to the satisfaction of everybody; the number we have limited to 150 which is filled by the most considerable Merchants we have. We have about fifty petitioners desirous of being admitted in case of vacancies. The subscription price is two Guineas. I have sent you enclosed a Copy of our regulations, with a list of the Subscribers, which no doubt you will be glad to see; as I daresay nobody in Hull has it, and it has become a general topick of converstaion here in London – I shall by this means keep up the Connections that will be useful to us in business without having the trouble and expense of seeing them at home.’81

To cap it all, Polly was three months pregnant. ‘God Grant that you may arrive to your full time and then to a Speedy Delivery, as well as recovery,’ wrote Uncle Richard in September. ‘I am very much pleased to learn of your rising at six of the Clock, for when the days are so long as to permit it, tis certainly the most pleasantest part of the day.’82 When he wrote to her on 3 December, however, he noted that she had been ‘put under some restraint’, and counselled her that ‘if you were not so careful of yourself as you ought to have been, it may now be necessary for your future health.’83 A letter written by Richard to his brother, Mark, a week later revealed that a shadow had fallen across the young couple’s happiness. ‘I am not a little uneasy for Polly’s second Miscarriage and wish the advice they have consulted may have the desired effect for the future.’84 By March, Richard was extremly worried. ‘I am under great concern for our niece de Ponthieu,’ he wrote to his brother Joseph. ‘Brother Parson gave me but a very disagreeable account of the state of her health.’85 He wrote to Mark suggesting that a trip to Sledmere might do Polly the world of good. ‘I think it was well Judged to come down to try her Native Air since the Doctors that have been consulted could not do her any service. As soon as she is so much better and dare venture to under go the fatigue of a Journey here … I will meet her God permitting at Beverley with our Coach to conduct her here, and I am not without hopes that this air may partly contribute towards re-establishing her in her former state of Health.’86

But it was not to be. Worn down and depressed after her miscarriages, Polly was wasting away, suffering from what appears to have been Anorexia. ‘Her appetite is so bad,’ wrote Richard to Joseph on 20 March, ‘that she does not take nourishment sufficient to support nature, so must in consequence rather lose than gain strength.’87 Richard hoped she might be tempted by the Sledmere dishes she had loved in the past, and in April wrote to John de Ponthieu suggesting that she ‘perhaps could eat a Sledmere Pidgeon or a young Rabbitt … and if she can think of anything Else that Either this place or the Neighbourhood can produce that will be acceptable, let me know and will do my best endeavours to obtain it for Her with all the pleasure imaginable’.88 By 1 June, however, he noted that ‘every letter gives less encouragement of hopes of our Dear Polly’s recovery’, and went on to admit ‘I must own to you I have been preparing myself for the change these two months past, but while there is Life would hope for the best and pray God support you all and all of us against the Severe Tryal with Christian Patience.’89 On 18 June poor old Uncle Richard made the following entry in his pocket book, ‘Niece Polly de Ponthieu died at 7 o’clock of the evening at York.’90