Ellerton Abbey House Explained

Ellerton Abbey House
Coordinates:54.3708°N -1.8811°W
Location:Ellerton Abbey, North Yorkshire, England
Area:Richmondshire
Built:circa 1830
Architecture:Regency style
Designation1:Grade II listed building
Designation1 Date:7 December 1966

Ellerton Abbey House is an historic building and estate in Ellerton Abbey, North Yorkshire, England. It was built around 1830 for the Fore Erle-Drax family, and has been designated a Grade II listed building by Historic England. The property is located at the end of a long driveway off the northern side of the B6270 Richmond Road, about southwest of Ellerton Priory, now ruined.

As of 2021, the building is occupied by Ellerton Abbey Antiques and Mrs Pumphrey's Tearoom, the latter in reference to the character in the original version of the BBC television series All Creatures Great and Small who lived there with her spoiled Pekingese dog Tricki-Woo. Filming took place inside the house, which was named Barlby Grange in the series,[1] and in its grounds.[2]

Drax family

Following the Dissolution of the Monasteries the Priory became the property of a series of people until it was purchased in the 1690s by Col. Henry Drax, a wealthy slave owner and sugar planter, of Drax Hall in Barbados, who was looking for an English estate which would produce £10,000 per annum.[3] His heir was his nephew Thomas Shatterden, of Pope's Common, Hertfordshire, son of his sister, who in accordance with the bequest adopted the surname Drax in lieu of his patronymic. His eldest son and heir was Henry Drax (c.1693–1755), a Member of Parliament[4] and a favourite of the Prince of Wales, who married Elizabeth Ernle, heiress of Charborough House in Dorset, which today remains the residence of his descendant Richard Drax, MP.

John Samuel Wanley Swabridge Erle-Drax built the house for his wife, Jane Frances, around 1830.[5]

See also

Notes and References

  1. https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/heritage-and-retro/heritage/which-yorkshire-locations-could-be-used-film-new-series-all-creatures-great-and-small-1753497 "Which Yorkshire locations could be used to film the new series of All Creatures Great and Small?"
  2. https://ellertonabbeyantiquesandmrspumphreys.co.uk/ Ellerton Abbey Antiques and Mrs Pumphrey's Tearoom
  3. John Habakkuk, Marriage, Debt and the Estate System (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1994), p. 455.
  4. R.S. Lea, 'Drax, Henry (?1693–1755), of Ellerton Abbey, Yorks. and Charborough, nr. Wareham, Dorset', in R. Sedgwick (ed.), The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1715–1754 (from Boydell and Brewer, 1970), History of Parliament online.
  5. https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/history/18606613.ellerton-abbey-slave-owners-created-one-norths-romantic-ruins/ "Ellerton abbey: How slave owners created one of the North's most romantic ruins"