Brockfield Hall

Brockfield Hall is only six miles from York, but is in parkland little changed from when Benjamin Agar built the farm and walled-garden in 1799 and his house in 1804.

The architect was Peter Atkinson, partner of John Carr of York, and a feature is the entrance hall with a fine cantilevered staircase.

Brockfield was bought in 1951 by Lord Martin Fitzalan Howard and it is now the family home of his grandson, Mr. Wood and his wife, the Hon Mrs. Wood.

Lord Martin was the brother of the 17th Duke of Norfolk and the son of the late Baroness Beaumont of Carlton Towers near Selby. There are some interesting portraits of her old Roman Catholic family, the Stapletons, and some good English furniture.

The house is also home to the country’s largest collection of paintings by artists of the Staithes Group – Yorkshire’s impressionist artists. The Staithes Art Club (1901-1907) had some thirty members, many of whom trained in Paris at the Academie Julien, and are thus close cousins-in-art of the Newlyn School in Cornwall.

Brockfield Hall was recently restored and was the winner of the 2023 Sotheby’s Historic Houses Restoration Award 2023 and the 2024 Georgian Group Restoration of a Country House Award.

The house is open to the public each year. See below for more details.