PLEASURE GARDEN’S REVIVAL
Queen Mary called Plumpton Rocks ‘heaven on earth’, but its future was in doubt 10 years ago. After a major restoration programme, it will re-open to the public. Laura Reid reports.
It doesn’t matter if you’re three or 73, it’s a lovely place to go and spend some time, walking around the lake and the rocks. It’s a great spot to go for a picnic and get away from life’s stresses and troubles.
Robert Hunter, owner of Plumpton Rocks.
IT HAS been 12 years since Robert Hunter inherited Plumpton Rocks from his late father – and that period has been one of major transformation for the historic landscaped pleasure garden on the outskirts of Harrogate.
A decade ago, it was placed on Historic England’s Heritage At Risk register, deeming it among sites across the country most in need of safeguarding for the future, after falling into decline towards the end of the last century.
Now, with the final phase of an extensive restoration programme completed and the Grade II*-listed site removed from the ‘at risk’ list, it is expected to re-open to the public next month.
“It’s been a dream for me to actually restore the rocks and for a long time I didn’t think it was going to be possible,” says Robert.
“I wasn’t in a financial position to fund the works myself entirely and grant funding from Historic England and Natural England in particular has enabled us to carry out this restoration and it’s been a great success. It looks wonderful and it will be great to open it up again for people to enjoy.”
The site is rich in history. It was owned by the Plumpton family from the Norman Conquest until 1749 when the last male heir died unmarried.
It was then sold to the Lascelles family of Harewood House in the 1750s and the pleasure grounds, Plumpton Rocks, were laid out with advice from Wakefield-born architect John Carr. They were originally designed to be the grounds for a country house mansion.
Robert says: “There was a little castle there which the Plumpton family lived in and then that was knocked down when the Lascelles family bought the site.
“They were going to build a large house there and they had the plans made but they were never completed. The garden grounds were developed though and various other buildings were completed like the stable blocks which are still there.”
Today, Plumpton Rocks consists of 30 acres of parkland, with lakeside walks, dramatic millstone grit rock formations and woodland trails through bluebells and rhododendrons. Several of the rock outcrops have been given names including Lion’s Den, Lover’s Leap and Needle’s Eye.
According to Historic England, the lake was made from an existing fishpond, which was enlarged through the creation of a substantial dam.
It is captured in the work of artist J. M. W. Turner, who produced two oil paintings of Plumpton Rocks, following his first visit to Yorkshire in 1797.
One is of the lake head looking south, with fishermen at work on the water. The other is from the dam looking north, with fishermen packing up for the night.
These were Turner’s first commissioned landscapes in oils and he charged the Earl of Harewood little more than £32 for the pair. Both known as ‘ Plompton’ Rocks, they now hang at Harewood House.
“Turner visited the rocks twice so there’s a lot of sketches,” Robert says. “During the restoration, we were able to use those as a guide to what the place looked like. So we were able to take it back to some extent to how Turner would have seen the place all those years ago.”
Plumpton Rocks was open to the public throughout the Georgian and Victorian periods, and continued to be a popular visitor attraction into the 20th century.
After a visit with King George V, Queen Mary described the beauty spot as ‘heaven on earth’.
Robert’s father, a descendant of the estate’s original Plumpton family owners, bought Plumpton Rocks in the 1950s. Robert, who lives in Northumberland with this family, inherited it with a long-held hope to restore it to its former glory days.
He has previously spoken about how the gardens had initially entered decline after the First World War when there was a shortage of manpower to maintain them, and tourism tastes and trends then began to change.
After the grounds were placed on the Heritage At Risk register in 2012, they began to attract funding, with Historic England and Natural England, among the organisations stepping in.
A first phase of restoration work was completed in 2016, and Plumpton Rocks became a filming location for a much-anticipated adaptation of children’s adventure novel Swallows and Amazons. Robert says it has also been used in the filming of Netflix fantasy drama The Witcher, as well as for episodes of Emmerdale and Heartbeat over the years.
“It’s nice to see Plumpton on screen,” he says.
“It’s such an unusual site. There was a film made around 30 years ago, where it was used an Amazonian rain forest with crocodiles being pushed around by divers. It adapts very well.”
Plumpton Rocks may have had its fair share of time on camera, but, for Robert, it is important that people can visit the place too.
After the restoration programme to dredge the lake and restore it to its original size, as well as repair the dam and manage trees and vegetation growth among other projects, Robert is preparing to open the grounds for the first time since 2019.
“The Covid pandemic delayed things, there’s no doubt about that,” he says. “But ultimately, that hasn’t been a huge issue. It probably delayed us by a few months. It’s taken time for the grounds to recover from all the works that have been done.
“One of the big issues has been getting all the equipment into Plumpton Rocks. It’s a very beautiful site but quite fragile too.
“With the rocks and woodland, it’s actually quite difficult to get machinery in and out and because a lot of the work has been done over the course of autumn and winter, it creates a lot of mess and it’s taken time for the ground to heal.”
Last year, Plumpton Rocks was removed for the Heritage At Risk list, considered to have been restored and ‘saved’ for future generations.
“The site was put on the At Risk register and that was mainly because the lake had been silting up,” Robert says. “It was coming to a stage where the future of the lake was actually in doubt.
“To have Plumpton Rocks removed from the register was tremendous and it helped to justify the work and money that has been spent on it.
“The best thing about it is hopefully we’ve saved this place for future generations to be enjoyed by the public. If we hadn’t done that work, it really would be at risk, which would be terribly sad.”
He adds: “It’s a very beautiful site and you don’t really expect to come across a landscape like it on the edge of Harrogate. It’s a very unusual place.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re three or 73, it’s a lovely place to go and spend some time, walking around the lake and the rocks. It’s a great spot to go for a picnic and get away from life’s stresses and troubles really.”