Editing Walton Hall, West Yorkshire

{{Short description|House in Walton, Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2024}}
{{Use British English|date=February 2021}}
{{Infobox historic site
| name = Walton Hall
| image = Walton Hall, Walton (geograph 3495755).jpg
| built = {{circa|1767}}
| coordinates = {{coord|53|38|31.2|N|1| 27| 3.6| W}}
| location = [[West Yorkshire]], [[England]]
| designation1_type = 
| designation1 = UK Grade II*
| designation1_date = 11 April 1973
| locmapin = West Yorkshire
| gbgridref = SE 36377 16255
| architecture = [[Palladian architecture]]
}}

[[File:Sun dial in the grounds of Malton Hall, near Wakefield, West Yorkshire (O58086).jpg|thumb|right|The Boulby sundial in the grounds]]
'''Walton Hall''' is a [[country house]] in [[Walton, Wakefield|Walton]] near [[Wakefield]] in  [[West Yorkshire]], England. It was built on the site of a former moated medieval hall in the [[Palladian]] style in 1767 on an island in a {{convert|26|acre|sing=on}} lake. It was the ancestral home of the [[natural history|naturalist]] and [[tourist|traveller]] [[Charles Waterton]], who made Walton Hall into the world's first [[wildfowl]] and [[nature reserve]].<ref name=":0">{{NHLE |desc=Waterton Park, Walton, Wakefield|num=1487471 |accessdate=28 March 2024 }}</ref>

== Early history ==
Walton Hall, and a residence at [[Cawthorne]], were home to the Anglo-Saxon chieftain Ailric, who is mentioned in the [[Domesday Book]] and was the King's Thane for [[South Yorkshire]]. When the [[Norman people|Normans]] came to Yorkshire, Ailric was at Walton and was alerted by a man on horseback that they were coming in force. He amassed his retainers and on horseback they ambushed the mounted Norman knights of [[de Laci|Ilbert de Laci]], who were moving on the road from Tanshelf to Wakefield. The better armoured and armed knights of Ilbert de Laci resisted the attack. For two to three years Ailric maintained a [[guerrilla warfare|guerrilla war]] out of his estates in the west of South Yorkshire, until de Laci was forced to come to an accommodation with him, whereby Ailric would communicate with the local people and de Laci would return many of his former estates, including Walton Hall.{{cn|date=August 2023}}

A descendant of this family, Sara le Neville, married Thomas De Burgh, the Steward of the Countess of Brittany, Duchess of Richmond. Walton Hall was one of six manors, including the manors at [[Silkstone]] and Cawthorne and the De Burgh manors in [[North Yorkshire]], that she lived at through the year. In 1333, Sir Philip de Burgh was granted a [[licence to crenellate]] his manor house at Walton.

The Waterton family acquired the Cawthorne estates and those at Walton including Walton Hall, with the marriage in 1435 of Constance Asshenhull, the heiress of the De Burgh family, to Richard Waterton.<ref name=":0" />

In the time of Sir Robert Waterton, who served [[Henry VIII of England|Henry VIII]], the hall came to the water's edge and was three storeys high. Sir Robert Waterton's father-in-law was Sir Richard Tempest, who was with Henry VIII at the [[Field of the Cloth of Gold]]. His father-in-law was Steward of the King's manor of Wakefield and involved in the Tempest–Saville feud. The only part of the old buildings that remain is the old watergate, which is said to be part of an earlier 14th-century structure. At that time it was the only entrance across a drawbridge. The old oak hall referred to by Charles Waterton was on the second storey and was in an L shape.{{cn|date=August 2023}}

The entrance hall at Walton Hall has armorial shields on the walls representing the ancestors of the Waterton family. The Waterton family intermarried with other prominent Yorkshire families of the medieval age, including the [[Percy family|Percys]], the Barnbys, the Wentworths, the [[Hildyard baronets|Hildyards]] and others.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.barnby.info/Places/Britain/BarnbyHall.html|title=Barnby Hall, Cawthorne, Yorkshire, barnby.info|accessdate=14 February 2021}}</ref><ref>[http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/A2A/records.aspx?cat=199-spst_1&cid=-1&Gsm=2008-06-18#-1 Spencer Stanhope Muniments, Sheffield Archives, The National Archives]{{dl|date=August 2024}}</ref>
[[File:Charles_Waterton_by_Charles_Wilson_Peale,_1824,_National_Gallery,_London.JPG|thumb|276x276px|[[Charles Waterton]] by [[Charles Willson Peale|Charles Wilson Peale]], 1824, [[National Gallery]], London]]

== World's first nature reserve ==
In 1805, [[Charles Waterton]] inherited the family estate at Walton Hall. He initially returned there in 1813 and settled more permanently in 1821 after returning from exploring and managing his uncle' [[Slave plantation|slave plantations]] in [[British Guiana]]. Unusually for the time he was committed to nature conservation rather than hunting and game shooting for sport, which caused significant loss of native fauna. Between 1821 and 1826, he turned Waterton Park into a wildlife haven, designed to support and protect native and migratory species, especially birds.<ref name=":0" /> 

He insisted that the park be managed to minimise the disturbance to native wildlife. Keepers and dogs from nearby estates were banned during nesting season, shooting was forbidden and lake fishing was not allowed from autumn to May. He had a high boundary wall built, over 3 miles long and designed to deter foxes and poachers, that took five years to complete. He enjoyed observing wildlife and had watchtowers built so he could birdwatch.<ref name=":1">{{cite web |date=27 March 2024 |title=World's First Nature Reserve Given Protection by Historic England |url=https://historicengland.org.uk/whats-new/in-your-area/yorkshire/worlds-first-nature-reserve-given-protection/ |access-date=28 March 2024 |website=historicengland.org.uk }}</ref> 

He opened the park to the public for free to encourage people to enjoy nature. This included patients from mental asylums whose visits to spend time in nature formed part of their treatments. The parkland is now considered the first wildlife reserve, a landscape designed to protect wildlife.<ref name=":1" />

== Later history ==
Charles Waterton's son, [[Edmund Waterton|Edmund]], went bankrupt and sold the estate. The Waterton Collection is in Wakefield Museum.

Walton Hall is now part of the Waterton Park Hotel.<ref>{{cite web |title=Waterton Park Hotel and Walton Hall |url=https://www.watertonparkhotel.co.uk/ |accessdate=14 February 2021 |website=www.watertonparkhotel.co.uk}}</ref> In the 1940s and again in the early 1950s and early 1960s the Hall was a [[maternity home]].

Walton Hall is a proposed [[UNESCO World Heritage Site]]. [[Sir David Attenborough]] has stated that "Walton Hall is an extremely important site in the history of nature conservation worldwide. It is, arguably, the first tract of land anywhere in modern times to be protected, guarded and maintained as a nature reserve."<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/politics/sir-david-attenborough-backs-campaign-have-hs2-threat-estate-designated-heritage-site-1820098|title=Sir David Attenborough backs campaign to have HS2 threat estate designated at heritage site|work=The Yorkshire Post|accessdate=14 February 2021}}</ref> 

In 2024, Waterton Park, part of the estate, was registered at [[Listed building|Grade II]] by [[Historic England]], to ensure that the landscape considered "the world’s first nature reserve" is given greater protection and recognition.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":0" />

==Walton Hall sundial==
[[File:Bowlby's sundial, Walton Hall.png|thumb|right|Illustration of the sundial, 1867]]
There is a sundial located on the island to the rear of Walton Hall. It was made by George Boulby in 1813 and is made out of an [[ashlar]] with copper [[gnomon]]s.<ref name="HE">{{NHLE |desc=SUNDIAL ON ISLAND TO REAR OF WALTON HALL, Walton |num=1135580 |access-date=14 February 2021 }}</ref> It is a multi-faceted sundial made out of a [[polyhedron]]. It indicates the time in the following cities around the world: [[Amsterdam]], [[Basel]], [[Boston]], [[Demerara]], [[Madras]], [[Madrid]], [[Mexico City]], [[Moscow]], [[Beijing]], [[Philadelphia]], [[Rome]], and [[Warsaw]].<ref name="HE"/> It was described by Richard Hobson:
:"On the southern side of the mansion, on a slightly elevated mound, stands a most complete and very beautiful sun-dial, deserving of careful observation, inasmuch as it reflects a great credit on the sculptor, the late George Boulby, who was a common mason at the contiguous and rural village of Crofton, in 1813. A work of art, and, especially when it was well known to have been executed by a totally uneducated man – by a common mason, not only devoid of inculcated literary attainments, but by one having had no guiding artistic instruction – by a man having to earn, 'by the sweat of his brow', the few shillings sufficient to enable him to secure some of the works of the philosopher of Athens – by one having to entirely depend upon self counsel so as to elevate him in his financial and social position. I venture to say, considering all these formidable disadvantages and impediments, that this specimen of sculpture is a wonderful development of innate talent, and must be admired and applauded, for generations in futurity, as a relic of the excellence of the scientific execution of the common stone mason.

:"This dial is composed of twenty equilateral triangles, which are so disposed as to form a similar number of individual dials, ten of which, whenever the sun shines out, and whatever may be its altitude in the heavens, are always in use, and ever faithful time-keepers. On these separate dials are engraven, severally, the names of cities in all parts of the globe, which are placed in accordance with their different degrees of longitude, by which arrangement, the solar time, at each of the cities recorded on the different dials, can be simultaneously ascertained.

:"On one occasion Mr. Waterton, having to pass Boulby's house ... saw this dial in the stonemason's yard, for which Boulby asked a mere trifle. The Squire, delighted with the execution and the ingenuity of this simple-minded man, generously presented Boulby with twenty guineas by way of purchase, when the ingenuous and unaffected mason was infinitely more delighted to have the honour of his own artistic skills exhibited at Walton Hall, under the patronage of the Squire, than with the douceur which the sculptor erroneously considered far beyond its value"
:::''Charles Waterton: His Home, Habits and Handiwork. Reminiscences of an Intimate and Most Confiding Personal Association for Nearly Thirty Years'', by Richard Hobson MD. (1866/7)

==See also==
*[[Listed buildings in Walton, Wakefield]]

== References ==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
{{Commons category|Walton Hall, West Yorkshire}}
* [http://www.overtown.org.uk/index.html Overtown Miscellany] – Walton & Squire Waterton

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[[Category:Country houses in West Yorkshire]]
[[Category:Buildings and structures in Wakefield]]
[[Category:Houses completed in 1767]]
[[Category:1767 establishments in England]]
[[Category:Walton, Wakefield|Hall]]
[[Category:Grade II* listed buildings in West Yorkshire]]