Yorkshire nostalgia: A look back at the turbulent history of Carlton Towers

A claim to the Beaumont Barony which had lain dormant from 1513 was accepted by the Committee of Privileges in 1840. Carlton Hall’s Miles Thomas Stapleton was called to the House of Lords as the 8th Lord Beaumont. He made some attempts to make alterations to the Hall. But when son Henry Stapleton 9th Lord Beaumont took control a more concentrated effort was made around 1870 to transform the building into a magnificent Gothic edifice.

Henry was born in London on August 19, 1848. He was only 6 at the time of his father’s death and so his mother had looked after the estate until he became of age in 1869.

From the mid-19th century, the Gothic revival had urged architects to work from the fundamental principles of Medieval art. This was a real departure from the previously popular styles that drew inspiration from the classical forms of ancient Greece and Rome.

To produce Gothic designs for Carlton’s renovation, Henry employed Edward Welby Pugin (1834-1875). Edward was the son of the more famous Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812-1852) often referred to as ‘God’s Architect’, due to the large number of ecclesiastical plans he produced. Edward’s work in Yorkshire included St Hubert’s Roman Catholic Church, Dunsop Bridge (1864); chancel and transepts to Mount St Mary’s Church, Leeds (1866); Meanwood Towers, Meanwood, Leeds (1866-68); and Our Lady and St Paulinus, Dewsbury (1867-71).

Edward Pugin’s designs at Carlton Hall included re-facing the exterior with cement to look like stone and adding the turrets, gargoyles, battlements and coat of arms innumerable. All this seemingly justified the change of name from Carlton Hall to Carlton Towers.

Notices concerning the Carlton building work and the workforce began to appear in newspapers from the early 1870s. One from October 24, 1873 said: ‘Wanted at Carlton Towers, a good smith to Sharpen Masons’ Tools Ec. Liberal Wages given.’

In February 1874 it was claimed that the quietude of Carlton village was very much disturbed ‘by the turbulent conduct of the rougher of the men employed in the improvements now being affected at Carlton Towers.’ One of man appeared before Snaith magistrates and fined £5 for assaulting a policeman.

A report from May 7, 1875 announced that a Mr Needham offered for sale by auction the plant used by Haigh & Co. of Liverpool, in carrying out their contract ‘for restoring and adding to Carlton Towers, the residence of Lord Beaumont…’

Remodelling the old house was only half of Edward Pugin and Lord Beaumont’s grand plans. Both men intended to extend the house to twice its present size as a surviving drawing by Pugin testifies. But the proposed Grand Staircase, Chapel and Great Hall were never built. Beaumont and Pugin quarrelled whilst the work was being undertaken. Yorkshire-born Francis Bentley was called upon to design the interior. Bentley is best known for Westminster Cathedral.

In 1870, Beaumont rushed off to serve on the staff of the Prussian Crown Prince in the Franco-Prussian war. The King of Bavaria made him a Knight of the Grand Cross of the Holy Sepulchre. From 1873 to 1878 he served as a captain in the army of Don Carlos, helping him with his claim for the Spanish throne. Beaumont was later appointed Carlist representative in England where he signed himself ‘Chargé Dˊ Affaires, Spécial et Officieux, of H.M. Charles VII.’ In 1879 he served with the 17th Lancers in Zululand and he was present at the Battle of Ulundi.

Beaumont made periodic visits to Carlton because the game-books show that he shot 1,644 partridges in the season 1884-85 and 1,903 in the following season. The renovation of Carlton Towers had cost a considerable amount – one newspaper reporting £250,000. No doubt to recoup some of the costs an auction sale ‘of the outlying portion of the of the Carlton Estate’ was held on July 27, 1887 at the Great Northern Hotel, by order of Lord Beaumont. It comprised 3,930 acres and two properties known as Camblesforth Hall and Chester Court.

On July 28, 1888, 9th Lord Beaumont married Violet, daughter of Frederick Wootton Isaacson, MP. He died in London aged 43 from pneumonia on January 23, 1892 without issue. His widow Violet, Lady Beaumont continued to live for some time at the Towers. Henry’s brother Miles, became the 10th Lord Beaumont. He was a colonel in the 20th Hussars.

On July 7, 1893, a Mr Chinnock of Chinnock, Gallsworthy, & Chinnock, of London offered for sale by auction, under orders of the Court of Chancery – to satisfy claims of the mortgagees – the Carlton Towers estate. The mortgages had been taken out by the 9th Lord Beaumont. The auction comprised the stately mansion, the park, two important farms, and a number of residences, the whole domain containing just over 953 acres. With the exception of the Carlton Towers and the surrounding park, the whole of the lots changed hands. The house and park were bought in by mortgagees at £30,000.

In November 1893 the 10th Lord Beaumont married Miss Tempest, only daughter of Sir Charles Tempest, of Broughton Gall, Skipton-in-Craven, Yorkshire. When, Sir Charles died in 1894 and his only daughter was the sole heiress, one newspaper said: ‘The fortunes of the Beaumont family may now be said to be restored.’ On Friday December 21, 1894, the press announced: ‘We are informed on reliable authority that the Right Hon. [10th] Lord Beaumont has contracted for the purchase of the Carlton Towers Estate, which news was received in Carlton on Tuesday with great satisfaction.’

Fate however was to play a cruel hand. During Monday September 16, 1895, Lord Beaumont went out shortly after breakfast at Carlton Towers with his dog and gun to shoot over the estate. But whilst climbing over a gate he accidently shot and killed himself. He had only just relinquished the command of the 20th Hussars on the departure of his regiment to India. It was only three months earlier that the peer, along Lady Beaumont and their infant daughter, had taken up residence at Carlton. It was their intention, to settle down at Carlton and their arrival in the neighbourhood was welcomed by village people and the estate tenants. Their second daughter was born only a month before 10th Lord died.

In January 1896, at a gallery in Pall Mall, a portion of the picture collection from Carlton Towers, the property of Henry Lord Beaumont, was sold under instructions from Violet, Lady Beaumont. There were 90 pictures, for the most part by or attributed to the old Italian masters. Only one, it was said, reached a noteworthy price, a work by N. Poussin ‘Sacrifice to Pan’. It sold for 430 guineas

During the same year in March, news came that ‘the barony of Beaumont is to be terminated by the Queen in favour of the elder daughter [Mona Josephine Tempest Stapleton] of the late Lord Beaumont,who was born in August 1894.’ She became 11th Baroness Beaumont.

Around August of 1896, Lady Beaumont erected in the small chapel at Carlton Towers a marble monument to the memory of her late husband the 10th Lord Beaumont. He was represented in his uniform as Colonel of the 20th Hussars.