Project

In 1695, when Thomas Wentworth, third Baron Raby (later first Earl of Strafford), did not inherit Woodhouse estate, which he regarded as his ancestral home and birthright, he began a life-long undertaking to build a home surpassing in grandeur the house and grounds to which he was denied inheritance. (...)

In 1695, when Thomas Wentworth, third Baron Raby (later first Earl of Strafford), did not inherit Woodhouse estate, which he regarded as his ancestral home and birthright, he began a life-long undertaking to build a home surpassing in grandeur the house and grounds to which he was denied inheritance. In 1708, Wentworth purchased the Stainborough estate, changed its name to Wentworth Castle and began building formal gardens, terraces, ponds, waterfalls and follies. The house and grounds were commented on by luminaries from Wentworth’s day through the twentieth century. Historians and social critics from Horace Walpole to Jonathan Swift and Nicholas Pevsner all wrote about the splendor, taste and pride evident in the enterprise of creating Wentworth Castle.