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

He wrote another letter to Marson in August, complaining bitterly of his failure to deliver materials on time. It painted a vivid picture of the situation on site a year into the building work. ‘The House wch. we are obliged to live in, having no other,’ he wrote, ‘is laid open on evry side, & will be till the facia is put on, as my New Additions entirely surround my Old House. When you Read this wch. I wish you would do every Monday Morning & consider my Situation with a large family, you must not be of Human Materials if you do not Employ all Hands to get me stone for one Vessel not to wait an Hour & two Vessels if possible. I assure you upon my Word we have not stone here for fourteen days Work without turning away the Hands we have employed all Summer & without wch. we cannot live in my House this Winter.’30

The scene must have been one of chaos, with Uncle Richard’s perfect, neat house opened up on all sides, new walls rising all around it beneath a forest of scaffolding, the air filled with a cacophony of noise – the shouts and curses of the workmen, the creaking and shrieking of the ropes and pulleys, the banging of tools, the rumbling of the arriving and departing wagons, and the neighing of horses. The family were tormented by dust and Christopher wrote that they were surrounded by ‘hills of Rubish’.31 To cap it all, Bessy’s favourite dog, a Pomeranian bitch called Julia, was at death’s door. ‘How sorry I am to hear of her dangerous state,’ wrote her son’s tutor John Simpson to Christopher in October, ‘I am afraid Lady Sykes will take it too much to heart. I wish she wou’d never have another favourite dog. It is a Dog’s life to have to mourn for the loss of them every six or seven years.’32 The problems with the quarry dragged on. ‘I entreat you will use every effort to send us immediately some large Stones,’ Christopher wrote to Marson on 4 October, ‘which we wrote for so long ago & three Col[umns]: we cannot conclude our Work without them this Winter, and shall be all at a standstill in a Week’s Time.’33

The outside walls appear to have been up by April, 1789, which was a crucial year in Christopher’s life, in that it was when he made his decision to give up politics, sell his London house, and devote all his time to Sledmere. This is not so surprising when one considers how much time and energy he was giving over to his great project, leaving little room in his life for the machinations of the political world. He also liked to be at the helm and could never have been happy as a small cog in a large wheel. Bessy hated the political and court life, and this too may have been a factor in his decision. He broke the news to his constituency at the beginning of June, writing to his agent, Mr Lockwood, ‘I have given up every thought of Standing again for Beverley. When I came the last Time it was done on a sudden, & I find a steady attendance at the House of Commons not consistent with my health, or consonant to my feelings & mode of Life.’34

In anticipation of the completion of all the stonework by the end of the year, Christopher now embarked on the next stage of the work on the new house, which was to consider the interior decoration. While helping out a neighbour, Sir Thomas Frankland, with designs for the improvement of his house, Thirkleby Park, near Thirsk, he had been introduced to the work of Joseph Rose, one of Robert Adam’s leading decorators, whose work included the ceilings of the Gallery at Harewood, the Library at Kenwood, the stuccoes of the Hall at Syon and the ceiling of the Great Parlour at Kedleston. ‘I am building a large House,’ he wrote to Rose on 26 July, ‘& thro the Recommendation of Sir Thos. Frankland, & your General fame wish you to undertake the plaistering … I intend to finish very slowly as I wish the Work to be well done neat & Simple rather in the Old than New Stile nothing Rich or Gaudy, but suiting to plain Country Gentn.’35 He asked him to come as soon as possible, and in a further letter expressed his wish that ‘all the Men you employ here will not be sent from London as I have a particular pleasure in employing Persons in my Neighbourhood when it can be done consistently with the Work being well executed, & they are usually well acquainted with the Nature of the Materials’.36

Sir Thomas Frankland could not have made a better recommendation than Rose whose ideas turned out to be exactly what Christopher had been looking for. He was thrilled with the first set of drawings. ‘I perfectly agree with you in your Ideas of the Stile in wch. my House ought to be finished,’ he wrote excitedly at the beginning of October, ‘& I would have but few Ornamts. But what decorations are introduced I would have them singular, bold and Striking & only where propriety & good Taste required them.’ The delivery from London of an order of fixtures and fittings the following week might have suggested that work was now progressing at a pace. ‘On Saturday Night the Doors arrived here,’ Christopher confirmed to John Andrew of Aire Street on 12 October, ‘and when we opened them this Day they had got some little wet but will be no worse, I think them very handsome Doors.’ Not so. There was, inevitably, a sting in the tail; ‘the Hinges also come, but you have forgot to send the Screws’.37

Errors such as this, small though they may have been, were an irritation to Christopher and his family who had been steadily retreating into more and more cramped conditions, virtually confined to the top floor of the old house. Here they survived until 1 February, 1790, when, at five in the morning, they set out for London. They were to spend as much of the year as possible in town, sheltering from the dust and the discomfort, and taking advantage of the fact that the house in Weymouth Street still remained unsold.

When the family finally returned to Sledmere, in the winter of 1790, they found the situation there greatly improved, with most of the exterior completed. This allowed Christopher to turn his attention to thoughts of the interiors, beginning with what was to be the most important room in the house, the Gallery, which had made its initial appearance on the design submitted by Samuel Wyatt in 1787. Though no drawings for it have survived, it is likely that Wyatt must have executed some, and it was these, or adaptations of them by Christopher, that Rose used as the basis for his ideas. ‘Both your last letters have much pleased me,’ he wrote on 2 April, 1791 ‘your first in giving me an account of the Gallery and saying that you was much pleased with it – I think it will be one of the finest rooms in the Kingdom.’38 He did not exaggerate, for to this day the room has few rivals in grandeur, even in houses twice the size. Two storeys high and running the entire length of the south front of the house, a distance of 120 feet, it is divided into three great cross-vaulted compartments, inspired by such Roman buildings as the Baths of Diocletian and Caracalla, soaring upwards into the roof space. Though Wyatt undoubtedly intended it to be a room for the display of pictures, for congregation and for occasional use as a ballroom and it was always referred to by Rose as ‘the Gallery’, at some point the idea took hold in Christopher’s mind that it should become a Library.

The rooms which followed, in particular the Music Room and the Drawing Room, suggest that, about this time, Christopher appears to have modified the notion of himself as the ‘plain country gentleman’ who wanted things done ‘neat & simple’, a description which could in no way be applied to the Drawing Room, an exquisite creation of which Rose was especially proud. ‘I must own that I think it the best design I ever made,’39 he wrote on 31 May, 1792, and with its intricately designed ceiling, containing motifs depicting Greek religious rites, with complex patterns coloured in blues, terracotta and light pinks, and its gilded highlights, the room showed Rose in his most ornamental mood. He was nervous, however, that Christopher would find it too elaborate. ‘I am afraid you will send it back again,’ he continued gingerly, ‘you will tell me that it is far too fine for your house, and too expensive and yet when I think of your Gallery, the proportion will bear me out.’ He excused the finery by saying that ‘the design is made for Lady Sykes room.’40

‘I never saw any place so much improved as Sledmere,’ wrote Christopher’s nephew, William Tatton, to his father, during a ten-day stay in May, 1792. ‘I think the Gallery as fine a room as I ever saw. They have not yet finished the Sealing and I suppose it will be nearly two years before they will be able to make any more of that room.’41 A year later, apart from the floor of the Gallery, all the major building work was complete, and Rose’s time was taken up with painting and decorating. At the end of May, Rose, whose relationship with his client had grown to a stage where he was also acting as his agent in London, had sent Christopher ‘a great number of patterns of papers … many of them very pretty’ from shops in Swallow Street and Ludgate Hill.42 This was the first mention of wallpaper in their correspondence and he returned to the subject now. ‘Mrs Rose has been about your papers to Ludgate Hill and chosen the borders … if the papers are to be glaz’d upon an average they will cost three halfpence more.’43

Though John Houghton, a contemporary of Evelyn and Pepys, had written as early as 1699 that ‘a great deal of Paper is nowadays so printed to be pasted upon walls to serve instead of Hangings’,44 wallpaper did not truly become fashionable till the 1730s when improvements in manufacturing brought down the price. ‘I am told there is a new sort of Paper now,’ a neighbour of Christopher’s, Nathaniel Maister, had written to his friend, Thomas Grimston, in 1764, ‘made for hanging rooms with, which is very handsome, indeed from the price it ought to be so, for I think it is 2s. 6d. a yard. Have you seen any of it?’ Christopher’s paper was ready to be shipped on 4 September. ‘I have not been so fortunate as to see any room fitted up with the furniture and the paper having a border of the same pattern,’ wrote Rose. ‘I should imagine it would look very pretty … if you please I will make further inquiries about it.’45 He had soon found a Mr Sagar, a former upholsterer turned wallpaper-hanger, to ‘come over to Sledmere & hang as many Rooms as are wanted to be hung at 7d. a Sheet, borders included, everything to be found for him to hang the Rooms with.’46

Rose also took it upon himself to furnish Christopher with everything he needed for his new home. It was a job he was only too happy to do, particularly since he knew his employer to be a prompt payer. ‘I am exceedingly obliged to you for your offer of money,’ he wrote in June, 1793, ‘but I am not in want of any at present, and I am fully persuaded I never should be, if all my employers paid as you do: or only one half of them.’ Rose organised the ironwork for the staircase, mirrors for all the rooms and supervised numerous other orders, such as a ‘lamp for the Drawing Room ceiling’, ‘handles for the Vazes in the Hall’, the ‘Altar and Grate’ for the hall fireplace, and ‘sham stoves’ to heat the outer hall. Something else arrived for the house in the middle of August, something for which the Sykeses had waited seven years and which was one of the most important purchases Christopher ever made. ‘By Sir Christopher Sykes’s directions,’ noted William Saunders of Cavendish Square, London, on 2 August, ‘I pack’d up in a packing case upwards of nine feet long, a picture, & with it a small Box – sent them to the White Horse, Cripplegate, directed to you – the Waggon left London Yesterday (Thursday) Morning, by that you will know when to expect them.’47 The small box contained a white satin dress, the packing case ‘a large whole length picture’. It was to turn out to be one of the greatest eighteenth-century portraits ever painted.

‘Painted by Mr Romney,’ stated the account, dated 16 May, 1793, ‘a large whole length picture of Sir Christopher and Lady Sykes. £168.’48 The picture, so carefully packed up by the framer, William Saunders, was a full-length portrait of Christopher and Bessy by George Romney that had been started in 1786. This painting, which today is regarded as being one of Romney’s finest works, was commissioned by Christopher when he first became an MP, as an expression of his status. Twelve sittings for this painting were recorded in 1786 and the picture was then left unfinished in Romney’s studio for several years. The fact that it took so long to complete meant that by the time it was delivered it had evolved into something much more than just a straightforward portrait of a country gentleman.

Here stands an elegant slim young man, wearing a scarlet coat and black breeches. With a long, straight nose and high forehead, he is tall and brimming with confidence. In his right hand he holds a pair of spectacles, in his left a plan of some kind, both of which suggest the seriousness that becomes a man of his station. If he were on his own, one might describe him as haughty, but he is saved from this by the charming and softening nature of his beautiful red-haired wife, Bessy. Wearing a long white silk dress, with a string of pearls flung almost casually across her right shoulder, she leads him out of some Ionic portico into a landscape which reflects his accomplishments; those in architecture represented by a distant ‘eyecatcher’, probably Life Hill Farm; in agriculture by the acres of plantations and enclosed fields which stretch out before him. Her hair, strung with pearls, catches the wind and at her feet a brown and white spaniel stands adoringly. She is gazing at her husband with a look of both love and admiration. Often called The Evening Walk – in comparison to Gainsborough’s famous painting of Mr and Mrs William Hallett, The Morning Walk – it is a portrait of the greatest charm.

More important, however, is the fact that it represents Sir Christopher Sykes as he saw himself, a man who was at the very pinnacle of his achievements, who had risen from the ranks of the merchant class to become the epitome of the aristocratic landowner. In the general scheme of things it could not possibly have come at a more appropriate time. His land holdings were approaching their peak. He bought eight estates in the years 1792 and 1793, spending on them in excess of £52,000, the largest sum he had ever spent in such a short period. This brought the rental income he received annually from his estates up to £12,004. 8s. ¾d., which was a remarkable increase on the £1,960. 11s. 6d. he had started with in 1771.

The spaniel which Romney painted standing at the feet of its owners is a sporting dog, lending the suggestion, not incorrectly, that the subject was a lover of field sports. Christopher considered ‘the pleasures of the chase’ to be ‘really useful and beneficial to Society’. He laid out his reasons for this in a letter to his close friend Thomas Grimston. ‘They give opportunities of wearing off Shinesses, dispelling temporary differences, forming new friendships and cementing old, and draw the Gentlemen of the Country into one closer bond of Society.’49 His account book shows that he was a regular subscriber to a number of hunts throughout his life, while his diaries record several occasions when he rode out with hounds, his last outing having been in November, 1785, when he ‘hunted with Sir J Legard’.50

In spite of this, it was well known in the neighbourhood that hunting was not allowed at Sledmere. The reason for this was that he did not want his young plantations trampled to pieces. His neighbours were happy to respect his wishes. ‘You have objections, which no one has a right to controvert or even discuss,’ Lord Carlisle had written to him in October, 1788 from his nearby seat at Castle Howard. ‘You may depend upon my hounds not approaching in quest of their game any covers from which it is your inclination to exclude them.’ This rule did not apply, however, to other parts of his estate where hounds were free to go as they pleased. ‘I thankfully receive the permission to go upon your other estates,’ wrote Carlisle, ‘with the obliging offer of making covers, & accommodations upon them.’51

The final element in the Romney portrait, represented by the ruined Temple and the distant view of Life Hill, was architecture. It was timely since the arrival of the painting signified the virtual completion of the house. Rose was critical of the picture, ‘indeed I cannot see any likeness to Lady Sykes,’ he said dismissively,52 and there was a long-running argument as to where to hang it. Neither Rose nor his wife wanted it to hang in the Drawing Room. ‘Mrs R says the Picture must not hang over the Chimney,’ he had told Christopher in August, 1792, ‘and she is sure that Lady Sykes will not agree to it.’53 He even suggested that ‘Lady Sykes … shall scold when she sees you.’54 In the end it was hung in the Dining Room, where it still hangs to this day.

It seems that by the end of August, 1793, Christopher, although still telling people that ‘my House is far from finished’, was ready to receive a few guests outside the family. ‘How happy it would make Lady Sykes and myself,’ he wrote to the Duke of Leeds, on hearing that he was to visit Beverley, ‘if my Lady Duchess and your Grace would do us the Favor to come upon the Wolds … we have Beds sufficient to accommodate your Grace, and any Friends you may do us the Honor to bring with you.’55 By the time they visited, in October, with the exception of the Drawing Room and the Gallery, they would have found most of the main rooms painted and papered. Christopher having spent the princely sum of £1,384. 17s. 5d. in 1792 and 1793 on furniture, there was also presumably no lack of places to sit.

There was still much work to be done on the Gallery, including the laying of the floor, but so impressed by it were all those who saw it that Christopher decided to commission a picture of it to send out to all his friends. The man he chose to do this was Thomas Malton, an architectural draughtsman and occasional scene painter who had recently published with some success A Picturesque Tour Through the Cities of London and Westminster. Malton’s finished drawing, a watercolour, which arrived early in 1795, was exquisite. It showed the room empty except for a desk, thereby considerably enhancing its size, and the feeling of space was further magnified by the use of perspective, achieved by leading the eye towards the window at the far end and out of it to the church tower. Three minute figures, one seated at the desk, the others lolling in an alcove, completed the impression of vastness. The plate read ‘The Library at Sledmere, the Seat of Sir Christopher Sykes Bart, in the East Riding of Yorkshire’, and in the bottom left-hand corner an inscription gave credit where it was most due: ‘Designed and executed by Josh. Rose in 1794.’ Two hundred black and white impressions were made from it which must have greatly stirred the imaginations of all those who received them. The architectural historian, Christopher Hussey, wrote of it in 1949, ‘architecturally designed libraries are a feature of several of Adam’s country houses, most notably Kenwood. But this one surpasses them all in majesty of conception, suggesting rather the library of a college or learned and wealthy society; indeed in the space allotted to it, in the amount of shelf room, and in the beauty of its decoration it is surely the climax of the Georgian conception of the library as the heart and soul of the country house.’56

So the Gallery officially became the Library. The bookshelves ran down both sides from the floor to beneath the vaulting, with semicircular ones at each end on either side of the windows. Two great mirrors, designed by Wyatt, hung on the north wall while the floor was covered with a fine worsted carpet which stretched the entire length of the room and had a design which matched that of the ceiling. This was an entirely homespun affair, having been woven at a carpet factory run by Mr Christopher Bainton on one of Christopher’s estates at Wansford. Today it only exists in the Malton watercolour, since at the time of the fire it was being stored in the attics and was subsequently amongst the few contents of the house that were destroyed.

Thomas Malton also painted a watercolour of the exterior of the house, which is the only existing picture showing the grounds as they were in 1795. On the right of the picture, the landscape to the east of the house is heavily planted with large shrubs and maturing trees, and the ground slopes down to Christopher’s beautiful Orangery, with its rows of tall windows. In the middle a roughly cut lawn rises on a gentle incline right up the front door, which is reached by five steps, and where a number of people are congregating. To the left of the house a number of deer are gathered beneath a mature tree, observed by a woman and child, while in the foreground a couple are enjoying a leisurely stroll. It represents a romantic idyll, and is the first recorded view of the final realisation of a great project.

While the peaceful mood of the scene suggests the best of times, in the outside world there were clouds gathering which were soon to take Christopher away from his beloved Sledmere. Since 1793, England had been at war with France, and there had been few successes for her in the conflict. As Napoleon Bonaparte rose inexorably to power, Prime Minister Pitt and his colleagues could only look on with growing horror. One by one Britain’s allies on the Continent either made peace with or were defeated by the French, culminating with the collapse of Austria in 1797, which left England effectively fighting alone against this now all-powerful enemy. When Pitt himself made an attempt to reach a settlement with France, he was treated with the utmost contempt by the Directory, which had governed the country since the end of the Terror. They set terms that they knew would be impossible for Pitt to meet and immediately set about mobilising the combined French, Spanish and Dutch fleets to sail against Britain. Napoleon, triumphant after his success in conquering Italy, was appointed ‘Commander-in-Chief’ of the forces for the invasion of England, the Army of England.

On 22 January, 1798, Henry Dundas, Principal Secretary of State for War, sent Christopher the following letter. ‘Sir, Living in this distant part of England,’ he wrote, ‘I request you will excuse me troubling you to inform me if there is any plan to be given to the Country Gentlemen for having their Tenants and Neighbours enrolled for the use of their Waggons or their personal service either on Foot or Horseback at or near their Homes or whether anything of this kind is in Contemplation … and if not whether we … are justified in assembling those who are willing either with or without arms …’57

Dundas had in fact anticipated exactly what Christopher had in mind, who, before he ever read this letter, had written to the Duke of Leeds telling him that ‘I have lately thought that something should be done towards being prepared for defending ourselves against the French our infernal Enemies.’ He had appealed to the Duke to ‘make the proper Application to know if arms and Ammunition will be allowed to any Body of Horse or foot appointed for Defence of our own Coast & neighbourhood only, under myself & other neighbouring gentlemen. The Officers to be answerable for the Arms when called upon. The Men and Officers requiring no Pay except for Sergeants to teach them the Exercise & Evolutions. By Arms I mean a Sabre & pair of Pistols in Holsters for the Horse & Muskets with Bayonets (perhaps if one half had pikes) for the Foot.’58

Christopher concluded his letter to the Duke by saying he was certain that if he was allowed to pursue his scheme, ‘I have Reason to believe I shall be able to assemble a Number of Persons in this Neighbourhood.’ The result was the formation of the Yorkshire Wolds Gentlemen and Yeomanry Cavalry, which raised forty-five men as volunteers from sixteen parishes adjacent to Sledmere. On 22 February his friend Thomas Grimston from Kilnwick, who had his own troop, was writing to tell him that Sergeant Robert Wilson, one of the Sergeants in the Militia, wished ‘to refresh his Memory by overlooking now & then the Regulations laid down for ye Sword Exercise,’ and hence he had taken the liberty of ordering from the York bookseller, Mr Todd, ‘a Book of the Sword Exercise’.