Temple Newsam - treachery, hens and rhododendrons

Arriving at Temple Newsam

Temple Newsam is approximately four miles north-west of Leeds.  It can be glimpsed from the M62 if you know where to look.  Like so much else in Yorkshire as well as offering a great day out for the whole family it has hidden layers of history that are well worth exploring. 

It belonged originally to the Knights Templar, a religious order who managed to irritate King Philip IV of France in part because of their power and in part because of their wealth.  He had prominent members of the order arrested, tortured and executed.  In fact, the superstition about Friday 13^th springs from these events. The knights were never vilified in England the way they were in France but the order was eventually dissolved.  Philip’s accusations rather stained their reputation.

The property moved into the Darcy family at the beginning of the sixteenth century, hence the typical Tudor brickwork.  Unfortunately, Thomas, Lord Darcy, a devout Catholic, objected to Henry VIII’s move to Protestantism along with the suppression of all the monasteries so became involved in the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536.  He held Pontefract Castle for the king but gave it up to the rebels, claiming lack of provisions for a siege.  Actually he sympathised with the political, social and economic aims of the rebels led by Robert Aske- as did many other northern nobles.  Despite his many years of loyal service to both Henry VII and Henry VIII he was executed for his part in the rebellion. 

Henry VIII, always generous with other people’s property, handed the estate over to his niece Margaret Countess of Lennox.  And it was here, that her son Lord Darnley, the rather unpleasant syphilitic second husband of Mary Queen of Scots was born.  Once he’d weaselled his way into Mary’s affections, their cousin Queen Elizabeth I  (Henry's daughter) seized the property once more.  Lord Darnley’s violent death in 1567 helped to seal Mary Queen of Scots’ fate.  It was never satisfactorily explained how the gunpowder that caused an explosion at Kirk o’ Field where he was staying came to be there or how his body was found in the garden along with that of his groom both of them clearly killed by some other means.

After that brush with history things settled down for Temple Newsam, in so far as English history is ever settled.  Temple Newsam was purchased by the Ingram family who remodelled the house so that by 1628 it looked much as you see it now.  One generation lost money in the South Sea Bubble.  Another generation summoned Capability Brown to landscape the grounds. 

In time it was purchased by Leeds Corporation, hence its ownership by Leeds City Council today.  During World War Two, Leeds City Art Gallery sent its paintings here and by 1948 with the return of more than a 100 family pictures to the house it was well on the way to being a museum of fine and decorative art.

Today there are 1500 acres to explore as well as the farm which is home to some chunky and rather endearing pigs, sheep, goats, ducks, hens and turkeys as well as three donkeys.  There are swings, slides and seesaws, there are oceans of green rolling space. In spring the rhododendrons are spectacular and there’s always something to admire in the kitchen gardens and green houses – there’s not much in the way of treachery though!



An inhabitant of The Home Farm courtyard.