Stockeld Park is an impressive stone-built Palladian villa set in beautiful gardens and surrounded by parkland.
The house was built in 1758 - 63 for William Middleton, a member of a Roman Catholic family who had owned the manor since 1318. The architect was James Paine, one of the leading country house designers of the mid-18th century.
William Middleton died shortly after the house was completed and a new office wing was never built.
In 1893 the property was purchased by Robert John Foster, the owner of the Black Dyke Mills in Bradford, and he commissioned the architect Detmar Blow to make several alterations.
The entrance was moved from the south to the north of the house and a new east wing was added. At the same time the orangery beside the stable yard was converted into a chapel.
Today Stockeld Park is still a family home but the main rooms are now used for receptions and conferences.
Stockeld Park's entrance front was considerably altered at the end of the 19th century but the garden front remains as it was left by Paine.
This very original Palladian facade is divided into three contrasting sections. The three-storeyed central block, under a pediment, is flanked on either side by lower wings, each with an open pediment over a semicircular relieving arch. All sections have a rusticated ground floor and the wings have canted bay windows.
The main rooms of the house are all on the ground floor and are grouped around a central top-lit Staircase Hall in the style of a villa. The oval Staircase Hall is most impressive and has a magnificent cantilevered staircase, with curving iron balustrades, which reaches through the full height of the house.
The reception rooms retain much of the original plasterwork. The most notable rooms are the Library, which includes part of the original chapel, and the Morning Room, the original entrance hall.
The fine collection of 18th and 19th century furniture and paintings was introduced by the Foster family.
Stockeld Park is set in gardens with lawns, large herbaceous and shrub borders, fringed by woodland and surrounded by 100 acres of beautiful parkland.
The house, gardens and parkland are at the centre of an extensive farming estate
Stockeld Park runs a yearly Christmas Experience
