Historic Houses shortlist Temple Newsam in Yorkshire for Collections Award 2023

The award honours owners and curators of stately homes which are open to the public for the care they put into preserving, restoring and displaying artefacts. The first winner of the award last year was the mineral collection at Caerhays Castle in Cornwall.

Judges look for the ‘most compelling story of custodianship’ among those on the shortlists. Among the panellists are Rufus Bird. a former senior curator of the Royal Collection, which included decorative arts kept in Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle.

The entry for Temple Newsam, the east Leeds estate and house which was given to Leeds City Council in 1938 by the Wood family, Lords Halifax, reads: “Temple Newsam is a 500-year-old stately home. It was birthplace to Lord Darnley in 1545, prior to being bought by the financier Sir Arthur Ingram in 1622. His descendants owned the house until 1922, when it was sold to the City of Leeds.

“Most of the contents were dispersed at this time, leaving the house denuded. However, in 1938 under director Philip Hendy, Temple Newsam became a museum of decorative arts with two key strands of collecting established; firstly, repatriation of objects to the house; and secondly, the acquisition of the finest examples of British decorative arts up to c. 1840. Furthermore, Temple Newsam became home to Leeds’ Old Masters paintings. Consequently, the house now possesses one of the most outstanding collections of decorative arts in Britain – including ceramics, furniture, metalwork, textiles, and wallpaper – displayed in a spectacular country house.”

The Tudor-Jacobean house has been called the ‘Hampton Court of the north’. The Woods sold up after World War One, when the house was used as a hospital, but placed covenants on it to ensure its protection. In the 1930s the grounds even hosted the Great Yorkshire Show.

The Wood family retained their other Yorkshire estates, including Garrowby in the Yorkshire Wolds and Hickleton near Doncaster. The current Earl of Halifax is a close friend of King Charles III and Queen Camilla, and attended the Coronation.

The other properties on the shortlist are Powderham Castle, Devon; Goodwood House, West Sussex; Ushaw, Durham and Cragend Farm, Northumberland. The winner will be announced at the Historic Houses AGM in November.