Warter Priory

Warter Priory is an eleven-thousand acre country estate in the East Riding of Yorkshire, amongst the Yorkshire Wolds, centred a mile south-west of the village of Warter and three miles east of Pocklington.

The estate surrounded a country house from the 17th century; but it was demolished in 1972.

The modern estate

In 1998 The Times described the estate as 8,080 acres of grade II and III arable land, 1,960 acres of grass and dale, 1,060 acres of woodland and 630 acres of let land. It was then operated by about 24 workers.

In 1998 the estate was purchased from the Constantine Phipps, 5th Marquess of Normanby by British entrepreneur Malcolm Healey for a reported £48 million. As of 2023, it had about 50 shooting drives and was reported to be worth over £1 billion.

In 2018 Healey obtained planning permission to build a new house on the site of the former country house, to create a modern informal garden and to restore the parkland.

Warter Priory house

A modest two-storey, five-bay country house originally named Warter Hall was built by the Pennington family of Muncaster Castle in the late 17th century. It was renamed Warter Priory in the 1830s after the former Augustinian priory in nearby Warter village. Major extensions were made in 1872, and it was re-fronted with corner towers added.

The last Lord Muncaster sold the house in 1878 to Hull shipping magnate Charles Wilson (later Lord Nunburnholme). In 1885 impressive alterations were made, including adding a great baronial-style hall and a tall entrance tower. The house now had nearly 100 rooms. Lord Nunburnholme died in 1907, survived by his widow for another 20 years.

In 1929 the house was sold to George Ellis Vestey, second son of the William Vestey, 1st Baron Vestey and Sarah Ellis. After Vestey's death, the house and the then 14,500 acre estate were sold in December 1968 for £4 million to Oswald Phipps, 4th Marquess of Normanby and the Guinness Trust, primarily for shooting.

The house contents were auctioned in March 1969, and when a tenant could not be found the house was considered surplus to requirements, as was regretably common for country houses at that time. The house was demolished and the gardens bulldozed in 1972, the rubble being used to fill the garden lake.

In 1998 The Times reported that the house had been described as "one of Yorkshire's greatest country houses, an architectural gem" and a "French-style grand house" with a marble-staircase and a elaborately carved oak fireplace. It noted it could also have been viewed as a "Victorian monstrosity" with 100 rooms and more than 365 windows requiring 40 servants and a "bottomless pocket" to maintain.

Mediæval Augustinian priory

Church of St James, near the priory site

The estate is named after the mediæval priory that stood near the village, but is not that priory's landed estate: the site of the priory lies just north of St James' Church in Warter village. The priory was suppressed in 1536 in the dissolution of the monasteries and was granted with its considerable amount of farmland to the Earl of Rutland.

Only the nave of the priory church continued in use as the parish church until 1864, when it was demolished and replaced by St James' Church. The site is a scheduled monument.

Location

• Location map: 53°56’5"N, -0°42’14"W

Outside links

• Warter Priory Estate
• Photographs of the old house from Pocklington History:
  • Exterior
  • Interior
  • The demolition