Malton Lodge

Malton Lodge

A gatehouse to the demolished Malton House, now converted to residential use. The building dates to 1604, originally built for Ralph, Lord Eure. It was altered around 1675, extended on both sides circa 1834, and further extended to the left in 1878 for the Hon W H W Fitzwilliam.

The original structure is built of coursed squared sandstone, with extensions in tooled sandstone and ashlar dressings. Stone chimney stacks support a pantile roof. The building represents part of a Jacobean Prodigy house, with extensions carried out in Jacobethan style.

The entrance front displays 2 storeys across 5 bays arranged as 1:half:1:half:1, with clasping pilasters at each end. A 1-storey 3-window extension projects to the right, and a low 2-storey 2-window extension to the left, with later 19th-century extensions further left. The three centre bays break forward to form a full-height frontispiece with Tuscan and Doric columns, featuring renewed paired detached columns on tall pedestals. The original central round arch with carved keystone, which once led to an inner courtyard, is now blocked by a screen wall with a lunette in a chamfered surround. Inserted double doors of raised and fielded panelling sit beneath a divided overlight.

The flanking half-bays contain 2-light ovolo mullion windows with hoodmoulds at ground floor level, the left with renewed architrave and the right blocked; above these are 18-pane staircase sashes. The first floor features mullioned cross-windows beneath vestigial hoods, paired in the centre bay over a defaced square sundial. Windows in the outer bays are blocked except for paired 12-pane ground floor sashes to the left; vestigial hoodmoulds survive above first-floor windows. A moulded first-floor string course and moulded eaves cornice sit beneath an embattled parapet between ogee-capped turrets that terminate the clasping pilasters. A defaced rectangular panel in a moulded surround occupies the centre of the parapet. Lead rainwater goods at each end of the front, positioned within the pilaster angles, feature scallop shell clamps and rectangular hoppers stamped: left ANO, right 1604/R E.

The rear is largely obscured by creeper but appears to repeat the entrance front with altered windows now featuring small-pane sashes. The right extension has a clasping pilaster at its right end and two mullioned cross-windows, plus one 2-light mullion window and a moulded eaves cornice beneath an embattled parapet. The rear includes a 6-light mullion and transom bay window. The left extension has a low projecting entrance lobby added to the front of the earlier extension, with a panelled door to the left of a 3-light mullion and transom window. Other details of the earlier extension mirror those of the right extension.

The late 19th-century extensions form a garden front of 2 storeys across 4 bays with ogee-turreted pilasters, extending into a 1-storey range of outbuildings. A panelled door with divided overlight sits in the left-of-centre bay, and a full-height canted bay window occupies the left end. All windows are mullioned with single-pane sashes. Moulded strings run at first-floor and eaves levels beneath a plain embattled parapet. The range of outbuildings incorporates a pedimented door-case with a flat arch of radiating voussoirs between rusticated pilasters. Both returns are dated 1874.

Interior access was refused at the time of inspection. Two 17th-century staircases with barley-sugar twist balusters are said to survive, one on each side of the central hall. A late 19th-century account of a visit by Dean Purey-Cust of York describes other fittings: above a curiously carved wooden chimneypiece are the arms of Lord Eure. Another sitting room is panelled with Jacobean panelling featuring pillars in pairs that break the wainscoting into separate panels, with elaborately carved pilasters supporting a mantlepiece consisting of four bas reliefs depicting the story of Jonah in carved oak.

In the early 17th century, the Eure family, who were recusant, figured prominently in Royalist affairs, and Malton House was besieged twice as a consequence. The mansion was demolished in 1674 following the death of Lord Ralph's grandson, William. His heirs, cousins Margaret and Mary, were unable to agree on partitioning the estate. The High Sheriff of Yorkshire ordered the house dismantled and the materials divided between the two ladies. Mary Eure subsequently married William Palmes of Lindley and established a linen manufactory in the surviving buildings, providing employment for the poor. Around 1690, she entertained Celia Fiennes in her house, who described it as a "pretty house." In 1640, Sir Henry Slingsby wrote in his Diary of Malton House: "We see an emulation in the structure of our houses if we behold that at Tibbalds, and that of my Lord Suffolk's at Audley End; so in this country my Lord Eure's at Malton, my Lord Saville's at Howley, Sir Arthur Ingram's at Temple Newsam."

Malton Lodge is an extraordinary relic of a great Prodigy house and is therefore of considerable national importance. The building was in partial occupation only at the time of list review in 1990.