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

The tragic loss of his beloved Polly receives remarkably little mention in Richard’s correspondence at this time. He took a stoical view, dealing with her death in the same way that, a few months later, he advised his friend Joseph Denison to cope after the death in the same week of both his father and his son. ‘Though these trials to our frail nature … appear very severe requiring great Fortitude of Mind to reconcile ourselves to the all Wise God dispensing providence,’ he wrote, ‘yet we must believe what ever he orders and directs is for the best … Let us sit down and seriously Consider asking ourselves at the same time will my Anxious Soul be benefitted by my unreasonable fretting? Will it not rather Endanger my future Health and constitution, or will it bring him to life again?’ When he had finished dispensing advice, he turned at once to other important matters. ‘Please to buy for us 2lb of best Hyson Tea, 2lb of Fine Green, 4lb of Gongs and 12lb of Common Breakfast Bohea Tea for the servants and send it by shipping to Hull directing it for me to be left at my brother Joseph’s.’91 Life must go on.

The death of Polly may well have been tempered by his growing fondness for his three stepchildren, of whom Bella seems to have been a favourite, and many amusing letters passed between them. He praised her artistic endeavours. ‘Shell work properly adapted and a Geneous to Imitate Nature,’ he told her, ‘is not only an agreeable amusement, but very delightful and Entertains both oneself & friends. I apprehend by this time, as it was your Taste before you left Sledmire, that you are a perfect Artist thereof and that you will be able to decorate every Room here where it wants your finishing Handy Work.’92 When she took up singing, he gave her a new nickname. ‘I think I must now drop all those familiar Names by which I out of my affection used to Apeller you & as you are become an Italian Singer I must now name you “the Belle Italienne” till another opportunity offers to change again for the better.’93 But perhaps what really drew them together was their shared love of pigs.

‘One of your Grunting Queens was brought to bed of eleven last week but one dead,’94 he wrote to her in October, 1759. The sow in question, nicknamed ‘The Chinese Queen’, had been a gift to Bella during the summer, so the news must have delighted her. The second litter, however, were all born dead. ‘I informed you what had happened to Her Majesty the Chinese Queen,’ Richard wrote the following January to Robert Norris, who had procured him the sow, ‘and desired to know what could be done for Her to prevent the like for the future, but you are silent.’95 Better news and a mystery followed in April. ‘I have had an uncommon increase of my family within this month past,’ he told Bella; ‘a Sow brought me Ten Piggs, six of which were Still Born, the remaining four by their Colour being mostly Black. By their form and shape we have strong suspicion to believe that His Chinese Majesty has not been so Chaste and Continent to Her Empress, who has not long to go before she will lay in, as becomes a faithful Husband. I can’t tell how John Yatton may not be to Blame in this affair, for you know he is their Guardian, and am afraid he has connived to their Love Meetings … If I conjecture right, the Emperor has by some token or other given him to understand that as he is an unmarried person he would make him a Present of One of the Princesses when fitt, and I have heard it reported of him that he is a great Lover of such Princesses, that he is for having two at a time, one not contenting him.’96

Richard’s new marriage brought great happiness to him and life into Sledmere with all the hustle and bustle and comings and goings that a family with children brings. These were amongst the best years of his life. His love of his house, his pride in his achievements – in his richly laden ships, his acres of land, his plantations and his gardens, his harriers and his pineapples – and his affection for his family are all self-evident. Sadly he had precious little time to enjoy them. ‘I fully intended coming over the next rent day,’ wrote Richard to John Rhodes, one of his tenants, on 9 January, 1761, ‘had it pleased God to have kept me well and free from Gout, but I have been confined to my Chamber since the 27th of last month with a very Severe fitt.’97 Yet in spite of the fact that he was suffering so much, and having constantly to surrender to Dr Chambers’s never-ending battery of remedies, he could not put aside his fondness for the bottle. Only four days later he wrote to his brother Joseph, ‘I thank you for your tender for some Butts of mountain wine at £23. 10s. I expect I have so much old Mountain left as will last my time or longer.’98 Prophetic words. On 19 January, he told ‘Brother Parson’ ‘I would flatter myself that this fit of the Gout is almost gone, but has left a great weakness.’99 A few days later he was dead.

The following epitaph, intended for a monument to him to be erected in the church, but never used, was written by his brother:

He was of strict Integrity

Universal benevolence

And a fast Friend

All the general Virtues shone conspicuously in him

Save Ever easy & cheerful in himself

Like Light he reflected

Joy, Pleasure & Happiness on all around him

He was a Grace to his Fortune

An Honor to his Country

True to his King and his God

Beloved while living-Lamented now Dead.100

CHAPTER II The Parson

Richard’s heir, Parson, was five years younger than him and conspicuously lacked his charm and joie de vivre. His portrait by Sir George Chalmers, which hangs to the left of the bed in the Red Room, shows him seated in a heavy wooden chair, dressed in powdered wig, black gown and bands. In his hands he holds a Sermon, the text of which is ‘Without Charity all is unavailing towards Salvation. Charity is the Chief Benefit of the Suffering and Death of Jesus Christ.’ He is thin and slightly bent, and though there is something of an expression of kindness and benevolence in his eyes, his demeanour is a solemn one. This may have something to do with the fact that of his six children, only one survived beyond the age of twenty-one.

Relatively little is known about the life of Parson Sykes. He was educated at Cambridge, where he became a fellow of Peterhouse College, and it was while he resided there that he met and fell in love with Decima Woodham, the daughter of a Cambridgeshire surgeon, Twyford Woodham of Ely. She was said to have been ‘remarkable both for beauty and cleverness’.1 Her portrait, painted when she was in middle age, hangs on the other side of the bed in the Red Room, and inspired my Grandfather to describe her as ‘gorgeous in white satin, lace and diamond buttons – very handsome and commanding looking’.2 They were married in 1735, on which occasion Parson’s uncle, Mark Kirkby, presented him with the Living of Roos, near Hull, thus setting him up for life in the style to which second sons of the Gentry were accustomed. They moved into the Rectory, an imposing red brick house, where their first child Polly was born in 1739, followed two years later by a son, Mark. A second boy, Richard was born in 1742, but died in infancy, while a third, also Richard, born in 1743, survived. After the death of their fourth son, Joseph, who was born in 1744, there was a gap of five years before the birth of their sixth and final child, Christopher, on 23 May, 1749.

Mark, the eldest son and heir, seems to have shown some promise at an early age, if one can believe the rather gushing words of the Rector of the nearby Parish of Patrington, Mr Nicols, who wrote to Parson in 1748, ‘I can hardly say which gave me most pleasure, whether to see the first Essays & Blossoms of a fine Genius in Master Mark’s letter, or the Rich Fruit & perfection of one in your Composition.’3 A year later Mark was writing to his father in a manner which suggests a precociously polite little boy. ‘Honored Sir, My Mama & I received an unspeakable pleasure at hearing that you was very well,’4 he wrote, the large scrawling handwriting of a boy of eight contrasting curiously with the quaint formality of expression. It is reassuring to learn that he was not all good. The year 1754 found Uncle Richard writing to Mark’s sister, Polly, ‘Your Brother doubtless has transgressed in a very high degree having forgott his duty to his Creator, Father, Mother and his other relations.’ Whatever the temptation was that he had succumbed to at the age of twelve remains a mystery, though it was serious enough for his uncle to state, somewhat dramatically, ‘the End I am afraid must be endless ruin and destruction of both Body and Soul’.5

There is a painting of Mark which hangs in the Red Room, next to that of his mother. He is wearing a beautiful red velvet suit with a richly embroidered matching waistcoat and lace jabot. His hand is resting on a globe. He has youthful good looks and a faint smirk playing across his face. ‘Look how fortune has smiled upon me’, he seems to be saying. Perhaps he was planning his Grand Tour, or which of the great universities he was going to attend. The label on the painting tells the sad truth; Mark Sykes 1741–1760. He died aged nineteen, the same year as his sister, two years before his younger brother, Richard.

Only two children survived to witness the move to Sledmere, which Parson inherited on the death of his brother, and which then consisted of an estate of just over five thousand acres. They moved in at the end of the summer. ‘I am curious to know how you pass your time in Sledmire,’ wrote his son-in-law, John de Ponthieu, on 10 September. ‘Pray do you delight in Gardning – how are your Trees, do they get the better of your Cold Climate, have you pine Apples in perfection? I should think in so private a place as Sledmire Gardning would be a very great amusement, especially as you cannot hunt – I intend you a parcel of Shrubs this Autumn. I desire you would order a spot to be dug up in your garden for them, as much sheltered as possible otherwise they might die.’6

Reading through the considerable volume of Parson’s correspondence written after he moved from Roos, gardening appears to have been the last thing on his mind. Scarcely was he settled than his son Richard fell ill. ‘I am very sorry for the account you give me of poor Cozen Dicky,’ wrote his banker and cousin by marriage, Joseph Denison, in November 1762. ‘I am very sensible of the affliction you must be under as a Parent, having felt it myself, when I lost both my boys in the same year. I have never heard of his being so ill before.’7 The following April he was sending his condolences ‘on your late severe loss, which has given both me and my Wife much sorrow’.8 There were frequent attacks of the gout, rendering him often bedridden, as well as keeping Dr Chambers as busy as he had been with Sledmere’s previous incumbent. Much of Parson’s time was taken up with clerical business and his high standing was reflected in the fact that on three occasions he was chosen to represent the Clergy of the East Riding in Convocation. That he had a high opinion of himself in this field is shown by the fact that when one local clergyman, the Rector of Hunmanby, wrote him a letter saying that he was considering standing himself, Parson scrawled across the letter ‘the man must have been drunk when he wrote it’.9

His primary interest however was making money, in particular by investment in mortgages and speculation in government bonds. He was described by one contemporary, John Courtney, a wealthy young financier, as ‘an artful cunning fellow, ready to take all advantages where he can’.10 Numerous letters he wrote to his London banker, Joseph Denison, testify to his love of speculating. Denison, who had also looked after his brother’s affairs, was an extraordinary figure, a former Leeds bank clerk who moved to London and prospered to such a degree that he came to own his own bank. He married Sarah Sykes as his first wife, who was a distant cousin of Parson’s. Celebrated for his spectacular meanness as he clawed his way to riches, he left great fortunes to his children, principally to his son, William Joseph Denison, who became one of Yorkshire’s biggest landowners and left a fortune of £2,300,000 in 1849, but also to his daughters, one of whom, Elizabeth, married the Marquis Conyngham, and became notorious as the mistress of George IV. ‘I wish most heartily I had now your £10,000 by me,’ began a typical letter from Denison to Parson, written in November, 1762. ‘I would lay it out this very day, & I am very confident I could clear you 10 p.ct in a few months … but it must be done immediately … you may Judge what an immense profit will be and is made.’ The letter concluded with a hint of his tightfistedness, conveniently blamed on his client. ‘I was once going to send this by Express, but I did not know if it might be agreeable to you, or whether you would think the expense too much.’11 Parson celebrated the profits from one deal early in their partnership by paying £1,000 for a single diamond, equivalent to approximately £50,000 in today’s terms, which he made into a ring which graced his finger for ever after.12

Denison, with a canny eye for the future, was also careful to cultivate ties with Parson’s son and heir. ‘Your Son was heartily welcome,’ wrote Denison in March, 1770, ‘to any small Civilitys it was in our power to show him during his short stay with us … He is a very worthy young Gentleman, & you are very happy in having so pleasing a prospect of his future amiable conduct and usefulness.’13 Parson’s only surviving son, Christopher, was twenty at the time and down from Brasenose College, Oxford, for a brief spell in London as the guest of Mr and Mrs Denison at their house in St Mary Axe. He had gone up to Oxford in the autumn of 1767, where, after the obligatory period of idleness and tomfoolery, requiring many parental admonitions, he appears to have grown into a model student. ‘I have not at any period studied harder than at present,’ he wrote to his father early in 1770.

Christopher’s decision to devote himself to study appears to have been inspired by the love of a woman. ‘I solemnly declare,’ he told Parson, ‘it was my attachment to Miss B. which alone brought to light what little abilities I may now possess; it was the desire I had of rendering myself worthy of her which first roused me to pursue my studies with application. They cost me for some months many hours of pain, but by a resolute pursuance they afterwards became a pleasure & now I may safely say the pursuit of knowledge is my only pleasure in the absence of her.’14 He studied law, history, botany, French and drawing under men who were the experts in their field in the world, such as ‘the famous Scotchman Williamson’15 who taught him mathematics and Thomas Hornsby, his astronomy tutor, one of the leading scientists of the day, whose observations of light ascension and declination were not surpassed in accuracy until 1925, and who went on to build the Radcliffe Observatory. There seems to have been no stopping Christopher in his pursuit of learning, all of which contributed to his development as a perfect example of the Renaissance Man. ‘I have begun a new study,’ he wrote on 6 May, 1770, ‘to add to all my other business. Music as far as it depends upon Mathematical principles, & strum a fiddle an hour or two every day.’16

The woman he loved, ‘Miss B.’ or ‘my dearest Bessy’, as he commonly referred to her, was Elizabeth Tatton, the daughter of William Tatton Esq. of Wythenshawe in Cheshire. She was a friend of long standing who was referred to in one letter as being ‘a woman I have from childhood adored’.17 It was a match that both his parents had apparently vigorously promoted. ‘When my heart was free and unconquered by Miss B.’ Christopher reminded Parson, ‘I well remember how many arguments you both used to persuade me to call upon her in a morning to walk out, & how you forwarded every opportunity of bringing us acquainted.’18

Writing to his father from the Denisons’, Christopher made quite clear his intentions so far as Bessy was concerned, strengthened all the more by his admiration for his hostess. ‘I am very fond of Mrs Denison,’ he told him; ‘she seems to be a very amiable & agreeable woman & of the sweetest temper; surely with such a woman the marriage State must be the happiest Mortals here enjoy (& such my Bessy is) for without good sense & a sweet temper every little accident will embitter its pleasures & any very unfortunate one even destroy its happiness … If unjust pray correct me for as I shall shortly (with the blessing of God & my Parents approbation) marry my Bessy, I could wish to know whether I have formed a right opinion of that state.’19

Soon after Parson received this letter, he gave his consent to the marriage. ‘I already perceive it will require the greatest economy to make my allowance serve till I am married,’ Christopher told him, echoing the familiar cries of incautious students down the ages. ‘Not-withstanding the many bills I have already paid, there still remains to pay as far as I can guess £170 – I have now by me £50.’ He was keen to show his father that in his opinion not one penny of the money spent had been wasted. ‘I shall send into the country goods to a very considerable amount: a very valuable collection of books in most branches of science; a much admired collection of prints of the best Masters which will be of infinite use in drawing & in forming a pure & just taste; a collection of coins not to be despised; Mathematical instruments & many miscellaneous things of less moment, with a set of beautiful specimens of the various kinds of Fossils collected by a man the most famous in the Fossil world; all these may most fairly be valued at £500. & I hope I may without vanity say that I either am now or shall shortly with the blessing of God be able to make a considerable use of the articles here contained.’20

The marriage between Christopher and his ‘beloved Bessy’ took place on 23 October, 1770, at St Wilfred’s, Northenden, the Tatton family’s parish church. As well as personal happiness, it brought him great riches, for not only did he officially become the inheritor of Sledmere and all its estates, but Bessy brought with her a considerable dowry from her father, in the form of two banker’s drafts, one for £10,000, the other for £2,542. These were the first payments as part of the terms of the marriage settlement which had been signed on 1 September, under which Christopher was to receive a total of £16,000 out of the fortune left to his wife by her maternal aunt, Elizabeth Egerton of Tatton.

Though he took his bride to Sledmere on 29 October and stayed for five weeks, it was never Christopher’s intention to move into the house, as might have been expected, preferring instead to allow his parents to live on there, while he removed his bride to Wheldrake Hall, a modest house owned by the family to the south-east of York. After Christmas the young couple travelled together to London for an extended shopping spree, taking lodgings at Jewels Hotel, Surrey Street, which ran from the Strand down to the Embankment.

This was an important time in London’s history, with the City growing in power as a financial centre and rapidly expanding its banking, shipping and trading activities, and as they stood on the terrace of Somerset House, a few minutes’ walk from their hotel, looking out over the Thames, Christopher and Bessy surveyed a scene which had changed little since Canaletto had painted it twenty years previously. As they looked west up to the Banqueting Hall, Westminster Abbey and Westminster Hall, and east down to St Paul’s, a view which took in numerous facades of fine waterfront mansions and the myriad spires of city churches, dozens of small boats sailed the water: lighters, barges, brigs, hoys, dinghies, bum-boats, ferry-boats, packets and wherries all scuttling about and connected in some way to their larger cousins, colliers from the North, whalers from Greenland, merchant ships from the Continent, East Indiamen and West Indiamen, and square riggers from America who plied their trade in ever increasing numbers in and out of the port of London. To the east stood a monument to the man who had restored the greatness of Britain. The newly completed Blackfriars Bridge, opened in 1770, was named Pitt Bridge, after William Pitt, whose successful, almost single-handed, prosecution of the Seven Years War had brought France to her knees and Canada under the British flag. What a sense of excitement and pride the young couple must have felt.

In accordance with their new status, there was much shopping to be done, details of which Christopher meticulously recorded in neat, tiny handwriting in his account book. A large quarto volume protected by a pale calfskin dust jacket, and stamped on the front with the initials, C.S., and the date 1770, it was discovered a few years ago hidden away in the Estate Office, and has now been restored to the Library, where it is one of the most important books to have survived. It tells us in the first few pages exactly the kind of things a fashionable young couple down from the country would be buying to take home. For Christopher there were new clothes – pairs of breeches, a waistcoat, gentlemen’s ruffles, a sword and belt – and a visit to his tailor, while Bessy visited the milliner, and the barber ‘for curls’, and bought two gowns, one of India silk, lace trimming, a fan and cloak, and shoes. On 28 February her new husband took her to Mr Young, the antique dealer, and spent the not inconsiderable sum of £106. 14s. 6d. on jewels. They also went food shopping and ordered a whole Parmesan cheese, weighing 55 ½lbs, a Stilton cheese and some tea.

Then there was their new home to consider, which, having stood empty for many years, required completely refurbishing. On 29 January they visited Mr Elliot’s and spent £112. 2s. 8d. on china, while 6 February found them at Mr Christie’s buying pictures for £82. 8s. 6d. Ten days later they bought a second lot for £63, and further purchases of picture and prints from various dealers bought the sum spent up to £234. 17s. Their biggest single expense was on ‘plate’, bought from Mr Young on 20 February at a total cost of £303. 18s. In addition to these major acquisitions, they spent considerable sums on furniture, carpets, books, busts and a medicine chest, as well as paying visits to Mr Wood for a new chaise at £60, and Mr O’Keefe for a coach at £121. 15s.21 Christopher also spent money on adding to his collections of coins and fossils. They returned to Sledmere on 5 March, where they no doubt imparted the good news to Parson and Mrs Sykes that Bessy was four months pregnant. They finally arrived back at Wheldrake on 20 March, Christopher having bought himself a new horse for the journey.

The next few months were spent settling into their new home. Correspondence between Christopher and his wine merchant, Sam Hall, shows that in true family tradition a love of fine wine ran in his blood and that stocking the cellar was a priority. He had evidently suggested to Hall, that he might come and personally supervise its laying down and must have given him some vague description of Wheldrake. ‘The notion I have of your place of abode from your description,’ wrote Hall, ‘is that it has been some old uninhabited mansion (at least by human kind) and which feeling the weighty hand of time call’d loudly for such assistance as I make no doubt you have given to it in yr. best manner.’22 Christopher took delivery of a hundred dozen bottles of Champagne and five hogsheads at the end of April, and on 22 May received the following letter from Hall: ‘My father has wrote to London for six dozen of the very best French Claret that can be had and it shall come with the Malmsey agreeable to your orders.’ He apologised for not being able to come and oversee things himself, but told him that ‘the wines that we sent you will be fine and fitt for Bottling by the time the bottles are become thoroughly dry (and if they were rinsed out with a little brandy it would be serviceable) and the sooner it is then done the better … you will please to direct your Buttler to lay them on their sides in a cool dry place of the cellar.’23

With the cellar organised and the furnishing complete, the house was ready to receive the new baby. Bessy was seven months pregnant when Christopher received a letter from her uncle, Joseph Stafford, expressing his family’s delight at the impending birth. ‘We are greatly rejoyced to hear you are likely to have an increase of your family soon,’ he wrote, ‘and most sincerely wish Mrs SYKES an happy Delivery & Luck in a Lad – according to yr. Cheshire phrase.’24 His sentiments were timely, and on 20 August his niece was delivered of a son, whom they christened Mark. A guinea was paid to the Northenden bell-ringers to ring out the good news to the neighbourhood. A few weeks later, Joseph Denison wrote to say how delighted he and his wife were ‘to hear the young gentleman is so well – our little Goods thank God are the same. Will is a perfect Parrott, & talks everything.’ His own wife, he added, ‘expects every day to follow Mrs SYKES’s example’.25