Temple Newsam


Temple Newsam, is a Tudor-Jacobean house in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, with grounds landscaped by Capability Brown.
The estate lends its name to the Temple Newsam ward of Leeds City Council, in which it is situated, and lies to the east of the city, just south of Halton Moor, Halton, Whitkirk and Colton. It is one of nine sites in the Leeds Museums & Galleries group.

History

In the Domesday Book of 1086 the manor is listed as Neuhusam and was held by Ilbert de Lacy. Before the Norman Conquest of 1066 at it had been held by Dunstan and Glunier, Anglo-Saxon thanes. In about 1155 it was given to the Knights Templar, who built Temple Newsam Preceptory on a site near the present house. In 1307 the Templars were suppressed and in 1377 by royal decree the estate reverted to Philip Darcy, 4th Baron Darcy de Knayth. Between 1500 and 1520 a Tudor manor house, known as Temple Newsam House, was built on the site, described by some as "the Hampton Court of the North". It has also been spelled "Newsham" in the past.
In 1537 Thomas, Lord Darcy was executed for the part he played in the Pilgrimage of Grace and the property was seized by the Crown. In 1544 Henry VIII gave it to his niece Lady Margaret Douglas and her husband Matthew Stewart, 4th Earl of Lennox. Their son Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, who was born in the house in 1545, married Mary, Queen of Scots, by whom he was the father of King James VI of Scotland and I of England. Following the marriage Temple Newsam was seized in 1565 by Queen Elizabeth I. In 1603 King James I, successor to Elizabeth, granted it to his Franco-Scottish second cousin Ludovic Stewart, 2nd Duke of Lennox, who in 1606 was also granted Cobham Hall in Kent, but subject to the interest of the life tenant. In 1622 the estate was bought by Sir Arthur Ingram for £12,000. During the next 20 years the mansion was rebuilt, incorporating some of the previous house in the west wing.
Sir Arthur's grandson Henry Ingram, 1st Viscount of Irvine married Lady Essex Montagu, a daughter of Edward Montagu, 2nd Earl of Manchester. Between 1736 and 1746 Henry Ingram, 7th Viscount of Irvine remodelled the west and north wings of the house, creating new bedrooms and dressing rooms and the picture gallery.
In the 1760s Charles Ingram, 9th Viscount of Irvine, employed Capability Brown to re-landscape the park. The work was continued by his widow Frances Shepheard, who rebuilt the south wing, and lived at Temple Newsam until her death in 1807. Their eldest daughter Isabella Ingram, was for a time mistress of the Prince of Wales, who in 1806 visited Temple Newsam and presented her with Chinese wallpaper and the Moses Tapestries. Lady Hertford inherited the house in 1807 and bequeathed it to her younger sister Frances Ingram, wife of Lord William Gordon.
In 1820 the novelist Sir Walter Scott published Ivanhoe featuring a Templar preceptory named Temple Stowe, believed to have been modelled on Temple Newsham; the name is preserved in local road names such as Templestowe Crescent.
In 1841 the estate was inherited by Hugo Meynell-Ingram, son of Elizabeth Ingram, sister of Frances Ingram. Following his death in 1871 his wife Emily Meynell Ingram inherited the estate and developed it considerably. She bequeathed it to her nephew Edward Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax.
In 1909, of the estate at Knostrop were compulsorily purchased by Leeds Corporation to build a sewage plant. During the First World War the south wing of the house was turned into a hospital by Edward Wood and his wife Dorothy. Edward Wood fought in France as part of the Yorkshire Hussars, whilst Dorothy oversaw the running of the hospital as part of the Mayors War Committee In 1922 Edward Wood sold the park and house to Leeds Corporation for a nominal sum, placing covenants over them to ensure their preservation for the future.

Coalmining on the estate

Estate records show the existence of coal pits in and around the park in the seventeenth century and Bell Wood to the south of the house would have had bell pits for coal extraction. A colliery at Halton village was leased to a number of different individuals from 1660 through to at least the 1790s. The leases generally required the leaseholder to supply coals to Temple Newsam house.
In 1815, William Fenton, one of the 'Coal Kings' of Yorkshire, began the sinking of a mine shaft on the estate at Thorpe Stapleton. The colliery was named Waterloo to commemorate the famous battle of that year. Waterloo Colliery was operated as a royalty concession with contracted 'rents' for coal extracted going to the Temple Newsam landowner. Fenton also had a village built for his workers on land between the River Aire and the Aire and Calder navigation. The village was initially called Newmarket but then became Irwin Square on ordnance survey maps and Ingram Place on census lists, but it was commonly simply known as Waterloo. The Yorkshire, Lancashire and England cricketer Albert Ward was born here in 1865. The village had two rows of cottages and a school building. It was connected to the colliery by a wooden footbridge over the river. Deep coal mining on the estate ended with the closure of the Temple Pit of Waterloo Main Colliery in 1968.
Opencast mining on the estate began in May 1942. Seven sites were exploited to the south of the house almost entirely destroying Capability Brown's landscape. One site reached within of the South Terrace. It continued at the Gamblethorpe site as far as Dawson's Wood, in full view of the house, until 1987. No trace of the opencast remains now as the parkland was re-landscaped.
In 2019 there was a temporary exhibition about coal mining at Temple Newsam which was called 'Blot on the Landscape'

House and estate today

The house and estate are owned by Leeds City Council and open to the public. The estate is made up of large woodland, many areas of which join onto the surrounding estates of Leeds. There are facilities for sports including football, golf, running, cycling, horse-riding and orienteering. There is also a children's play park. The local football team, Colton Juniors, play on the football pitches surrounding the house.
The house has undergone substantial restoration to its exterior. There is an established programme of restoring rooms back to known previous configurations, reversing the numerous intrusive installations and modifications that took place during the building's "art museum" phase. There are substantial holdings of fine and decorative art which are designated by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport as being of national significance.
Of most significant historical and cultural interest is the Chippendale Society collection of Chippendale works that are on permanent loan. Temple Newsam House is one of Leeds Museums and Galleries sites, and has an international reputation for scholarship and research, unusual in a local authority museum service. In his book "Britain's Best Museums and Galleries", Mark Fisher gave museum an excellent review. When interviewed on Front Row, Radio 4, November 2004 Fisher placed Temple Newsam House in the top three non-national museums in the country, along with Birmingham's Barber Institute and the Dulwich Picture Gallery.
The Home Farm, open to the public, has a barn built in 1694 and is the largest working rare breeds farm in Europe, and only one of 16 nationally approved by the Rare Breeds Survival Trust. Breeds include Gloucester, Kerry, Irish Moiled, Red Poll, White Park, British White, Beef Shorthorn, Vaynol and Belted Galloway cattle; Kerry Hill, Whitefaced Woodland and Portland sheep, and Golden Guernsey goats. The farm was targeted by arsonists in the late 2000s with damage caused to a stable. Some animals were injured but the majority were saved.
There are extensive gardens, with a celebrated rhododendron walk and six national plant collections: Aster novi-belgii, Phlox paniculata, Delphinium elatum, Solenostemon scutellarioides, Primula auricula and Chrysanthemum.
The house is a Grade I listed building, defined as a "building of outstanding or national architectural or historic interest". The stables are Grade II* listed, and ten separate features of the estate are Grade II listed, including the Sphinx Gates and the Barn.

Events

Party in the Park and Opera in the Park were annual ticketed concerts organised by Leeds City Council and Radio Aire, which respectively have accommodated 70,000 and 50,000 spectators. Both were held in July on the site from 1994 to 2014. They took place on the grassed area which slopes down at the front of the house.
An amphitheatre near the stables block is used for occasional open-air theatre performances, and the fields to the north of the Home Farm are used for various events such as Steam Fairs and Dog Shows.
In August 1997 and 1998 the estate was the site of the V Festival but, after the success of the event, this was replaced by a new northern leg of the Reading and Leeds Festivals from 1999, taking place the weekend after the regular V festival slot in August. The Leeds Festival however moved to Bramham Park after the 2002 event when the festival was marred by riots and violence in the festival grounds, and trouble in the surrounding estates of east Leeds.
Sven Vath hosted Cocoon in the Park every July with the organisers behind Mint Club and Mint Festival from 2009 - 2019.
In 2019 it became the new home to Slam Dunk Festival as it had grown and moved out of the city centre of Leeds.
Many other events take place at Temple Newsam, such as the Leeds Waggy Walk event for Dogs Trust and Race for Life for Cancer Research UK. Since early 2013, there has been a weekly Parkrun event.