Nun Appleton Priory

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Coordinates: 53°51′09″N 1°09′22″W / 53.85250°N 1.15611°W / 53.85250; -1.15611
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Nun Appleton Priory, 1877

Nun Appleton Priory was a priory near Appleton Roebuck, North Yorkshire, England. It was founded as a nunnery c. 1150, by Eustace de Merch and his wife. It was dissolved by 1539, when the nuns were receiving pensions.[1]

Nun Appleton Hall

Nun Appleton Hall, 2014

Subsequently Nun Appleton was the

estate
of the Fairfax family.

The hall itself is built of reddish-orange brick with ashlar dressings and a Welsh slate roof in three storeys to a rectangular floor plan. It is grade II listed and now stands in some 200 ha. of parkland.[2]

The estate was acquired by

The 3rd Lord Fairfax of Cameron, the well-known English Civil War commander, who built the present hall in the late 1600s. In his time (c. 1651) the estate was the inspiration for Andrew Marvell's Upon Appleton House, a significant country house poem. Marvell was tutor to Thomas Fairfax's daughter, Mary.[3] After the death of Mary (who had married The 2nd Duke of Buckingham) in 1704 the estate was eventually sold c. 1711 to Alderman William Milner of Leeds
who carried out many alterations to the house.

His son William was created the

Baron Holden), a woollen manufacturer from Bradford
, whose ownership was somewhat brief as he died in 1912.

The hall was now empty and many of the tenanted farms were sold. The estate was put up for auction in 1914 and again in 1917 and eventually acquired by a private company which felled many of the trees but by 1919 had gone into liquidation. It was bought in 1920 by

Second World War
the hall was taken over by the London Maternity Hospital. When the stable block accidentally burnt down it was afterwards refurbished as a theatre and made available to the local community.

The property was bought from the last occupant, Sir Benjamin's daughter Joan Dawson, for £1.2 million in the 1980s by Humphrey Smith of the

Samuel Smith brewing family. The house is now fenced off, empty, unused and deteriorating.[4]

Nun Appleton Priory played an important part in the career of the young composer William Baines (1899–1922). He was befriended by the Dawsons in 1921, and was inspired by the house and its grounds to write many of his "nature" pieces for piano, including Twilight Woods and Glancing Sunlight.[5]

See also

References

  1. ^ Page, William, ed. (1974). "Houses of Cistercian nuns: Priory of Nun Appleton". A History of the County of York: Volume 3. Institute of Historical Research. Retrieved 31 May 2012.
  2. ^ "Nun Appleton Hall, Appleton Roebuck". British Listed Buildings. Retrieved 12 March 2013.
  3. ^ Greenblatt, Stephen, ed. (2012). The Norton Anthology of English Literature (9th ed.). New York: W. W. Norton & Co. p. 1790.
  4. ^ "Nun Appleton". The Gardens Trust. 13 May 2017. Retrieved 28 July 2020.
  5. ^ "William Baines". Retrieved 11 November 2020.

External links

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53°51′09″N 1°09′22″W / 53.85250°N 1.15611°W / 53.85250; -1.15611

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