Wrea Head Hall
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Wrea Head Hall was built in 1881–2 as the family home of John Ellis, MP and his wife Maria. The architect was Edward Burgess, who also designed the Rowntree's department store in Scarborough.[1]
The house is on the outskirts of Scalby near Scarborough in North Yorkshire within an estate of about 250 acres and takes its name from the raised land behind the house known as Wrea Head. It has sea views, pheasants, and deer.[2]
Wrea Head Hall was a sanctuary of John Ellis (1841–1910), a Liberal Party leader, who repeatedly wrote of returning there. Electric lighting, or at least an electric light, was installed at Wrea Head Hall by Christmas of 1893. In 1903, a garden party of 800 persons, Liberal Federation representatives, who came by rail and road, was held.[1]
In 1907, Mina Benson was invited to Wrea Head:
On Taking up Maria Rowntree Ellis's invitation, Mina must have been overwhelmed by her first sight of Wrea Head. Built by the Ellises in 1881-82, close to the ancient village of Scalby near Scarbourough, it was a beautiful estate of 250 acres that spelled wealth and good taste. Its large country house, devoid of heavy-handed Victorianism, stood within sight of the North Sea and overlooked a classic North Yorkshire landscape of hills, dales, and moors. Seven servants were employed within and seven without. Besides the grounds surrounding the house and the moorlands reserved for shooting, 40 acres were devoted to farming: pastures, barns, a diary, a home farm, tenants' houses and a herd of pedigree Guernseys.
When John Ellis died in 1910, he left Wrea Head to his wife Maria. Their daughter Edith remained at Wrea Head after Maria died in 1941.[3]
Edith was a Quaker leader in challenging militarism and seeking "peace and justice in South Africa, in Ireland and worldwide." During the Great War, she was Treasurer and Secretary of the Friends’ Service Committee supporting Quakers who refused the draft, and was herself imprisoned three months. After the war she turned Wrea Head into a convalescent centre for the conscientious objectors, who were released in 1919, for recuperation after "the harsh conditions of their confinement" and for employment training.[4]
In 1948, Edith gave Wrea Head and its contents to the North Riding County Council for the purposes of education although she continued to live in the west wing of the house until her death in 1963.[3]
In 1981 the county council sold Wrea Head and it was converted it into a hotel.
It was owned by the Turners, who also owned the Holbeck Hall Hotel, which, alas, slid into the sea in 1993. Wrea Head Hall, though, was a "splendid Victorian building with something of the same rich, restful atmosphere as Holbeck Hall used to have".[5]
It was bought by "former GP" Mark Giles and "Hollywood marketer" Gerry Aburrow in about 2013. In a 2019 interview, at the time of their launch of a virtual tour, they explained their having deliberately underplayed the merits of the hotel, in their marketing, so that customers would be pleasantly surprised, and that the best advice they received "was not to try to start small and work our way up, not to do something we would outgrow, but to find something we would grow into."[2] Their efforts included rewiring the hotel and renovating its 21 bathrooms with new plumbing and fittings and Carrara marble, and much more, while ensuring the historic mansion retained "its wood-panelled charm".[2]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Bassett, Arthur Tilney (1914). The life of the Rt. Hon. John Edward Ellis, M. P.. London: Macmillan. p. 51. OCLC 1048333618. https://archive.org/details/lifeofrthonjohne00bass. Retrieved 13 April 2020.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "Wrea Head is Ready to Face the World". Scarborough Review. March 2019. p. 33. https://issuu.com/yourlocallink/docs/sr_march_2019_lr. Retrieved May 3, 2020.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 "Heritage & Lifestyle". https://wreaheadhall.co.uk/heritage-lifestyle/. Retrieved 8 April 2020.
- ↑ "History". https://theedithmellischaritabletrust.org/history/. Retrieved 8 April 2020.
- ↑ Sandra Barwick (12 June 1993). "Scarborough Postcards from the Edge". The Independent. https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/scarborough-postcards-from-the-edge-once-golden-sands-and-donkey-rides-were-the-big-attraction-now-1491143.html. Retrieved 4 May 2020.
