A work of history

Two homes with substantial stories to tell prepare to hit the market in North Yorkshire and Devon

- Penny Churchill

FEW grand country houses have dodged the ‘slings and arrows of outrageous fortune’ as neatly as Sheriff Hutton Hall, which is being sold by the York office of Savills (01904 617831) for the third time since 1998, at a guide price of £10 million for the restored, Grade I-listed Hall and its surrounding 203-acre estate, 10 miles from the racing town of Malton and 12 miles from York. Acquired by its present owner in a rundown state in 2010, the impressive 16,500sq ft main house has been the subject of a formidable renovation project that has left the freshly-painted interior as a ‘clean canvas’ for future interior design.

Described in COUNTRY LIFE (September 8, 1966) as ‘a work of history’ rather than ‘a work of art’, the original Sheriff Hutton Hall, then known as Sheriff Hutton Park, was built between 1619 and 1624 by Sir Arthur Ingram, a rapacious London financier who, when simultaneously building an ostentatious town house in York, set out to impress the gentry by adding a country seat where he could entertain his landowning friends.

Using stone taken from the ruins of nearby Sheriff Hutton Castle, he built his new shooting lodge on the site of a former royal ‘launde house’ in the deer park at Sheriff Hutton. The Jacobean building was very much larger than the present hall and, unusually for a shooting lodge, was equipped with a great hall, a long gallery and even a chapel.