Great Yorkshire homes: Sledmere

Some days it can be 12 guests, on others it’s 20. Today, it’s a relaxed dropping in, just two, and for one of the great houses of Yorkshire, a very homely lunch of bangers and mash.

“It’s very simple country house food, not pictures on a plate. Nouvelle cuisine isn’t country house stuff,” says Maureen Magee, cook for the last 29 years.

But then, for all its grandeur, Sledmere is homely. The board outside the kitchen with bells to summon servants to the various rooms of the house is long out of use, and there hasn’t been a butler in the butler’s pantry for well over a decade. Life isn’t like that any more. These days, the owner of the house, Sir Tatton Sykes, pops his head round the door of the kitchen to say hello.

Stately it certainly is, stuffy it resolutely is not. Sledmere feels like a home, not only to its owner, but to the staff whose links to it span not mere years or decades, but lifetimes. The 20,000 visitors a year who also drop in at one of the great landmarks of the Wolds pick up on its way of life and say so in the guest book. It’s there in page after page of comments, not only from British visitors, but those from as far afield as China, South Africa or Canada. “Great atmosphere,” they write.

For Cynthia Walker, housekeeper for the past 21 years, that’s a reflection of the nature of the house. “It’s a living home, there’s always somebody about. It is a stately home as opposed to a stately house.”

Sledmere and its surroundings are as much home to Maureen and Cynthia as they are to the Sykes family who have been here since 1751, when the first stone was laid. The story of this corner of Yorkshire is not only the history of the family, but of the county’s rich industrial heritage.

Both Maureen and Cynthia live in Sledmere village, and for centuries now the community has had the house as its heart. It may only be eight miles from Driffield, and passed through every year by thousands branching off the main road from York to Bridlington and opting for the scenic route, but Sledmere always comes as a surprise, an unexpected hive of activity amid the tranquil open farmland and wooded hills.

Outsiders may not immediately grasp the bond that unites house and village, but to those involved, it is one that is both affectionate and enduring, an oasis of continuity in a changed world. Within living memory, everybody in the village worked in the house or on the estate; that is not so now, but the ties remain strong. Maureen says: “When I took this job, one of the Labour councillors in Driffield said to me, ‘You’ve gone to join the capitalists, working at the big house’. Well, what’s wrong with farming on the Wolds, maintaining the house and providing employment for people? How short-sighted, and he was an educated man.”

For the staff, life at Sledmere is a family affair that echoes the longevity of the owners’ tenure. Maureen’s links to the house were forged years before she foot in the kitchen; her sister married an employee on the estate, and her own husband, Ken, began work on the farm in 1953, moving to the stud four years later, where he remained until semi-retirement in 2003. Even then, his connection had a long way to run, as he joined the gardening staff on a part-time basis until January last year.

Like him, Cynthia, at 65 – who took over from her mother-in-law, who stayed until she was 72 – and Maureen, 63, are not planning to retire any time soon.

“Nobody has ever mentioned retiring at all,” says Cynthia. “We wouldn’t have any staff if we were retiring. Over the years, people have retired or left to have families, but you just grow into it and get swept along with it all. We’re held in a position of respect and trust, and we have a lot of fun. I don’t think outsiders always understand how it gets hold of you. It’s hardly like coming to work.”

House and village are far from being a time capsule. Outside, the walled garden is being remodelled with raised beds for salads and vegetables to provide produce for Sledmere’s café, and plans are being laid for an overhaul of the floral displays.

Inside, the operation is a far cry from any image of legions of liveried flunkies. The outlines of long-demolished servants’ quarters are visible on the outer walls. Half a century ago, there were 50 staff, including a boy whose sole duty was to clean shoes. Now, there are only eight, all of them part-time, with additional staff such as guides – all of whom have long associations with the house – coming in during the open season from Easter to September. For the weddings that Sledmere hosts, or social functions with numerous guests, like the dinner for 37 when Royal Ascot relocated to York in 2005, staff are recruited locally.

This is the way a modern stately home operates, its spirit and atmosphere defined by long-standing relationships between employees and Sir Tatton, the eight Baronet, who succeeded to the title in 1978 when his father, Sir Richard Sykes, died.

“When I first started here, there were more staff sat down to lunch in the staff room than there were in the dining room,” says Maureen. “It’s not like that now. Everyone has to be very adaptable these days. I’ve typed a letter for him, and we’re always multi-tasking.”

Sledmere shaped lives and landscape across a vast area of the Wolds, and for all its status as a jewel in a rural setting, its heritage lies firmly in commerce.

The Sykes family made its money first in the flourishing cloth trade of the West Riding, and then reinforced its wealth via shipping from Hull, particularly the booming Baltic trade in pig iron during the first half of the 18th century.

That wealth transformed Sledmere, as 20,000 trees were planted on the Wolds and the estate expanded. The great landscape gardeners “Capability” Brown and Thomas White were brought in to lay out 2,000 acres of parkland. The village was demolished and relocated, and the main road to Bridlington closed and re-routed. The house itself was extended and remodelled..

Yet the interior that Cynthia looks after today is of a much more recent vintage because of a devastating fire that tore through Sledmere on May 23, 1911, leaving the house a shell. There was a blessing though – because the fire started in a remote part of the building, the staff had time to remove virtually all its contents. Restoration work began in 1913 and lasted throughout most of the Great War, recreating an 18th century house.

Time has moved more swiftly in that century since the fire. “I can’t believe there’s only one generation’s difference between now and Sir Tatton’s parents,” says Maureen. “The menus would go up on a tray in French, and in the kitchen they’d have two or three things already started because they didn’t know what would be required. Sir Richard used to change for dinner every night. Now, Sir Tatton pops his head round the door and says, ‘I’m going to Driffield, do you want anything from Tesco?’”

Sledmere is open from Friday, April 22 to Sunday, September 25, and this year features an exhibition commemorating 100 years since the great fire – see www.sledmerehouse.com for details.