A number of new members joined our group on the visit to this familiar place of local history. For many recent years Netherside Hall has been associated with special education, the hall having been restored from a long period of neglect and unoccupancy. Our visit was kindly led by Andy Peace of Yorkshire Camps.
Our interest was in its original life and use, but although the building’s function has changed, we were impressed to see the interior and still sense the grandeur of its architecture; large square rooms of great height, some still with beautiful ceiling plasterwork; expansive windows with full length shutters. The entrance hall is known as the Lantern room, due to its height reaching into the roof with a typically Georgian glazed projection, a landing running all around on the first floor with rooms leading off.
This Georgian hall, built in 1820, has many Jacobean features including mullion and transom windows, deep hoodmoulds, kneelers and grouped tall chimney stacks. The central bay is overlain by a single-storey porch, elaborate with three round arches, strapwork parapet coping flanking a circular plaque carved with the crest of the Nowell family. We viewed the gorge and river Wharfe from the very edge of the building’s north-east elevation, from where a footbridge once existed to gain access into the dense wood opposite (presumably for game sport). The extensive high-walled once-productive garden was impressive, with adjoining store/workroom buildings. The walled garden is a D-shape which is quite rare.
The land already known as Netherside was leased to the Nowell family by the Atkinsons of Linton, and Alexander Nowell funded the building of the Hall in 1820, presumably for use as a shooting lodge as he otherwise had property and business in London. The Nowell family of Lancashire, established seats at Rede Hall and Gawthorpe Hall from at least the 17th century, noting that in c.1660 Francis Radcliffe of Threshfield married Elizabeth Nowell of Rede. Another note is that it was an ancestor of the Nowell family who was the Magistrate who sent the Pendle witches to Lancaster Castle where they were executed.
Progressively…..Alexander Nowell (1761-1842), of the Gawthorpe Hall branch of the family, entered the East India Company’s army but resigned without promotion to become an indigo manufacturer in Tirhut. He married Maria Theresa and returned to England with a fortune in 1805, with a home and political business in London. At this time he built Netherside Hall where he returned to when his affairs in London failed, and died without issue in 1842 with heavy debts. He was succeeded by his niece Margaret Atkinson on the understanding she reverted her surname to Nowell, followed by her sons who sold the property in 1924, having let it for the previous few years to Clement Holdsworth of Scargill House.
Sir Robert Geoffrey Ellis MP (1st Baron Threshfield) was the new owner of the Hall in 1924 until it was sold in 1937 to become Miss Brown’s Preparatory School which was transferred from its previous occupation of Eshton Hall in Gargrave. Netherside Hall continued as a facility for education until 2012, and in 2015, was bought by a charity who lease it to Yorkshire Camps, the current occupants.
There are many interesting links with Netherside, such as Rebecca, daughter of Cuthbert Wade of Kilnsey Old Hall, married Roger Nowell of Read Hall in 1695 ; Margaret Atkinson’s (Nowell) son Alexander Dawson Nowell was Rector of a modiety of Linton ; the Atkinsons connection with Richard Fountaine of Linton; Netherside land linked with Kilnsey Old Hall prior to 1820. We realise what expanding interest there is in this Hall’s history.
Phyllida Oates, June 2023
