Kirkby Fleetham Hall Estate opens as idyllic North Yorkshire wedding and events venue

But Karen’s property development expertise and interior design intuition were to prove invaluable in the hall’s restoration. “I didn’t know how this house was, but I put it back exactly the same,” she says.

The estate lies a mile north of the village of Kirkby Fleetham, four miles from Bedale and 10 miles from Northallerton. The main house overlooks a lake and is set in 20 acres of astonishingly beautiful gardens and grounds that include a pretty stone church, magical woodlands, an orangerie and a walled garden, plus three holiday cottages. It could have been created as an idyllic venue for weddings, celebrations and events – and that is exactly what it has just become.

Kirkby Fleetham Hall was bought in the early 1720s by John Aislabie, MP for Ripon and Chancellor of the Exchequer until he resigned after the collapse of the slave-trading South Sea Company. He retired to his Studley Royal estate and bought the Kirkby Fleetham estate for his son, William, who also became MP for Ripon. It was he who laid out the grounds and gardens, and built the current house in the mid-1700s for his daughter, Ann Sophie, who had married William Lawrence.

The estate later passed to the Waller family, and in 1889 was bought by Edward Courage of the Courage brewing family. In 1979, it became a country house hotel, and remained so until Karen bought it in 2003 as a home for herself, her now ex-husband and children, Oliver, now 23, and Sophie, now 21.

“I arrived and was gobsmacked,” Karen says of her first sight of the estate. “We had a country house in Richmond, and I’ve lived in country houses pretty much all my life, not as a child but from my early 20s.”

Originally from Sunderland, she was inspired early in life to dream big. “As a child, I would look at all the beautiful country houses and think, one day I would like to have one of those,” she says.

“I achieved it by designing and developing barn conversions, predominantly in Northumberland, and then I started to do properties all over, and now I do properties internationally - I work in the South of France, Mallorca, on ski chalets in the Alps. I’ve specialised in listed buildings.

“I’ve completely renovated the house from top to bottom, but I’ve done it in a traditional style. Some designers will do a set style, and I don’t believe in that. I think it’s better to reflect the property.”

The house has eight bedrooms. Guests walk into a huge reception hall to find a grand cantilevered staircase and double doors leading to a 46ft-long drawing room that overlooks the gardens and lake. On the first floor landing, Karen widened the corridors and added period arches and cornicing.

“The gardens are by Capability Brown, the walled garden is by Gertrude Jekyll,” she says. The title of Lady Fleetham came with the house, but she prefers not to use it. In 2022, the house featured on Channel 5’s Sally Lindsay’s Posh Sleepover and has been in interior magazines.

Her children, she says, adore it. “It’s very much their home, a family home, and they don’t know any other. But it does take a lot to maintain it so, in the end, it’s such an idyllic wedding venue, it’s crazy not to open it up for everybody to enjoy.

“We want to keep it very exclusive. People take over the whole estate for a celebration, a wedding, a staycation,” she says, adding that she will stay in one of her homes in the Alps or in Mallorca when the hall is booked.

Karen’s favourite room is the Drawing Room. “It’s got a beautiful, tranquil feel with views over the lake. If I want to have some quiet time, I’ll have a gin and tonic there or a coffee. I’m always entertaining. The house is made for people.”

The walls are painted in Farrow & Ball Green Blue, a colour inspired by the handpainted copper fireplace. “This part of the house dates back to 1650 - it’s listed,” she says. “Everybody thinks this is very Bridgerton.”

Weddings can take place in there for up to 100, while smaller intimate weddings and events can take place in the dining room, which she describes as the perfect winter room. There is also the Orangerie as an event option and there can be a marquee outside on the banks of the lake for larger weddings and events.

There is also a cosy sitting room adjoining the kitchen. “I like to have winter rooms and summer rooms,” she says. “The sitting room is very much a winter cosy room and I’ve used a Paint Library dark green paint, and it’s worked so well.”

Karen’s favourite place on the whole estate is the walled garden. “My secret garden, I call it,” she says. “I have gardeners but I also do a lot myself. Last night I was in the lake in my waders, taking out weeds.”

Karen’s own bedroom is the bridal master suite, which had been three bedrooms until she knocked them through and created an astonishingly luxurious bathroom. “I have hopefully reflected the design of the house to suit its period.”

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A favourite room is a French-style bedroom with a turquoise and cream (Zoffany) colour scheme. “The house, I think, has a bit of a French feel, so I wanted to give the house a French touch, with my experience of doing chateaus in France. It’s Farrow & Ball wallpaper, and that inspired me because I love turquoise.”

The furniture in here is French-style reproduction except for the bed valance, which is original. She sources from Maison Objets, and from sales and auctions at Newark and at Tennants. “If it’s a country house, I like to mix the antique with the new,” she says.

All the rooms are quite different, so next door is china blue and white with a cottage feel, decorated in Farrow & Ball Cabbage White and Ralph Lauren wallpaper. There are more newly decorated bedrooms on the third floor, each completely different and enchanting.

Karen put Kirkby Fleetham Hall up for sale in 2021, but took it off the market. Her property company Quintessentia is now working on another new country estate venue near Richmond, Grade I-listed Forcett Hall, which she is renovating ready for a Bridgerton-themed launch in October.

“The original intention was that I was going to move from here and do Forcett Hall for home, but I couldn’t bear to part with this because it’s like a hidden secret,” she says. “I instantly fell in love with it, and it’s got the most enchanting feel. Every day I walk around the grounds and I never take it for granted.

“Even after 21 years of living here, I kind of nip myself and think, wow.”

https://www.kirkbyfleethamhallestate.com/