Nostalgia on Tuesday: Bramham's Trials

After a disastrous fire in 1828 Bramham Park house lay derelict for the remainder of the 19th century. Rebuilt prior to the First World War, when many other country houses and estates were being broken up, it is now thriving. The grounds play host to one of the country's foremost rock events as well as the annual Bramham International Horse Trials
Bramham Park

Bramham House just before the fire  views from Park watercolour by ZieglerBramham Park

Bramham House just before the fire  views from Park watercolour by Ziegler
Bramham Park Bramham House just before the fire views from Park watercolour by Ziegler

Rebuilt prior to the First World War, when many other country houses and estates were being broken up, it is now thriving. The grounds play host to one of the country’s foremost rock events as well as the annual Bramham International Horse Trials.

The original house was built between 1698 and 1710 in a loosely Baroque style by Robert Benson, 1st Baron Bingley (c.1676-1731).

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The building’s architect is unknown, but names suggested include James Gibbs, Thomas Archer, William Talman and James Paine. Paine later enhanced the stables with a clock tower, classical portico and flanking pavilions.

Bramham Park  George Lane Fox - 'The  Gambler'Bramham Park  George Lane Fox - 'The  Gambler'
Bramham Park George Lane Fox - 'The Gambler'

It is strongly speculated that Benson himself worked with a local draughtsman to complete the design, which is in a restrained French Baroque style. Yet Bramham has two wings more in the Palladian style. Additionally, Benson is thought to have submitted ideas for the gardens, park and woodlands.

Robert Benson was elected Lord Mayor of York for 1707 and was MP for the city 1705-1713. A moderate Tory, he was Chancellor of the Exchequer and ennobled in 1713 and became British Ambassador to Spain, though he never got there. As a director of the South Seas Company, an angry mob reputedly stoned his carriage in Cavendish Square after the South Sea Bubble burst. Nonetheless, he found favour with Queen Anne, who visited Bramham at least once.

He married Elizabeth, the daughter of the Hon. Heneage Finch and they had a son (who predeceased Robert) and two daughters, Harriet and Mary (who was illegitimate). Reputedly, he also had an illegitimate son, the British soldier, dramatist and politician John Burgoyne, whose debts he cancelled in his will.

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Dying in 1731, Benson was buried in Westminster Abbey and the title became extinct. His estate passed to Harriet (c.1705-1771) who had married George Fox (c. 1697-1773). In 1750, George took the additional name of Lane on succeeding to the estates of his maternal half-uncle, James Lane, 2nd Viscount Lanesborough. George was given the re-created title of Baron Bingley in 1762.

Bramham Park

Bramham House Garden Front  Pre-RestorationBramham Park

Bramham House Garden Front  Pre-Restoration
Bramham Park Bramham House Garden Front Pre-Restoration

During Harriet and George’s tenure at Bramham, additions to the grounds included the Chapel built around 1760 to the designs of James Paine and originally built as a Palladian Temple. Standing in the Black Fen pleasure ground, the Ionic Temple or Rotunda was also designed by Paine.

George and Harriet’s only son and heir, the Hon Robert Fox Lane, MP for York, predeceased them in 1768. He had no children and his parents commissioned John Carr of York to build the Obelisk in Black Fen in his memory.

The baronetcy became extinct for a second time when George died in 1773; Harriet had died two years earlier. Bramham then passed to Robert Benson’s illegitimate daughter, Mary, who married Sir John Goodricke of Ribston Hall. The couple were allegedly responsible for taking away a proportion of Bramham’s household silver, Sheraton furniture and stone garden ornaments and cutting down ‘a fine oak wood’.

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On Mary’s death in 1792, Bramham, now reduced in value, was inherited by James Fox (1756-1821). He became Fox Lane from 1773 and was a nephew of George Fox Lane and Harriet. Elected MP for Horsham in 1804, he was a close friend of the Prince Regent, who frequently visited Bramham to hunt. James also turned the family surname round to ‘Lane Fox’.

Nick Lane Fox looks at a portrait of his ancestor  Robert Benson  the man who built the house at Bramham Park.Nick Lane Fox looks at a portrait of his ancestor  Robert Benson  the man who built the house at Bramham Park.
Nick Lane Fox looks at a portrait of his ancestor Robert Benson the man who built the house at Bramham Park.

Following James’s death, the house and estates were inherited by his son, George Lane Fox (1793-1848), a hard-drinking, gambler deeply in debt at the time of his father’s death. George was away when the house at Bramham was reduced to ruins by fire early on Tuesday July 29, 1828. Thankfully, there were no casualties.

The cause was allegedly a footman carousing in the servants’ hall in the butler’s absence, who drunkenly upset an oil lamp. Many of Robert Benson’s treasures were lost, including tapestries and a massive collection of solid silver plate. Two of George’s younger daughters and their nurse, who had been asleep upstairs, fled across the roof to safety.

Bramham then lay derelict for several generations until reconstruction was begun by George Lane Fox (1870-1947) who took control of the Bramham estates in 1906.

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Legislation had been implemented to compulsorily purchase land in Ireland, including the Lane Fox Irish estates. With this compensation, a dowry, plus finance from other sales, George was able to fulfil a promise he had made to his grandfather – that he would rebuild Bramham.

Architect Detmar Blow (1867-1939) re-created the original house as closely as possible and the family reoccupied it just before the First World War began. George Lane Fox had four daughters and on his death the Bingley title became extinct once more. His eldest daughter, Marcia (1904-1980), married Joe Ward-Jackson in 1929 and later adopted her maiden name, Lane Fox.

During the couple’s tenure repairs were undertaken on the temples in the grounds and ornamental stonework. Marcia and Joe’s son, George Lane Fox, developed the in-hand farming business and forestry, starting the Bramham International Horse Trials in 1974.

In 1997, George’s eldest son Nick, his wife Rachel and their five children moved in and he took over the management of the estate from his father. He has further developed and diversified the estate’s business. Most notably, the Leeds Rock Festival moved to Bramham in 2003.

The couple continue to develop Bramham, working hard to preserve it for the next 300 years.

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