Gilling Castle: Property development company buys Yorkshire country house and former school from Ampleforth College

The castle’s previous owner was Ampleforth Abbey, whose monastic order historically ran nearby Ampleforth College and used the former seat of the Lords Fairfax as a prep school, St Martin’s, from 1929 until its merger with the main site in 2018.

The mansion, with replaced a 14th-century manor house in the 1500s and also has Georgian additions, proved difficult to sell four years ago, and Ampleforth Abbey took it off the market, instead pursuing plans to turn the site into a holiday activity camp. Following a planning dispute, they abandoned the scheme and put Gilling back up for sale with Savills with a guide price of £3.75million last summer.

This time the Grade I-listed country house has found a buyer – property developers Stonehouse Projects, who are based in Apperley Bridge, near Bradford.

Stonehouse took possession of the site last autumn and held a Christmas party for staff in the house, which included a spectacular firework display.

The company has not yet submitted a planning application for change of use for the building, but they specialise in residential and commercial conversions. One of their recent projects is Rowntree House in York, a Georgian building at the bottom of The Shambles which was once a grocery shop and tea merchant’s owned by Joseph Rowntree, father of the chocolate-making dynasty. The shop had been derelict for around 50 years but has now been converted into luxury apartments.

Stonehouse Projects have been contacted for further information about their plans.

Gilling Castle’s potential

The house was listed as having 10 bedrooms and suitability for conversion into a hotel. It has 100 acres of grounds which encompass a nine-hole golf course – currently leased to a club – tennis courts and sports pitches as well as gardens and woodland. There is also a separate complex of stables and workers’ cottages which were used as classrooms and dormitories by St Martin’s.

The Abbey’s estate has reduced in recent years, with trustees also selling 400 acres of arable land that would once have been farmed by the Benedictine monks to a long-term tenant.