The Big House: The Story of a Country House and its Family. Christopher Sykes Simon

the first suspicious wisps of smoke were seen oozing out of the brickwork of a chimney, the fire had really begun to take hold. The alarm was raised at about noon, just as the elderly owner of the house, Sir Tatton Sykes, was sitting down to his lunch. The great bell of the hall was rung, and all the men employed on the estate, farmhands, grooms, coachmen, foresters, bricklayers and carpenters, were summoned to help. Even the children were called out from the village school. The agent, Mr Henry Cholmondeley, burst into the Dining-Room to tell Sir Tatton that the house was on fire and that he must leave at once. His warnings went unheeded, for at that moment the old man was interested in nothing but his food. ‘I must finish my pudding,’ he said, ‘finish my pudding.’

      There were two fire brigades in the district, the nearest at Driffield, eight miles away, and the other four miles further still, at Malton. Both were summoned. In the meantime, Henry Cholmondeley, who had no illusions about how long they would take to arrive, organised all present into a human chain and began a bucket service from the reservoir which supplied the house. Just as this was beginning to prove useless, since it was impossible to get access to the seat of the fire, a neighbour from Malton, Mr Freddy Strickland, arrived by motor car, bringing with him Captain Jackson of the Fire Brigade and a quantity of hose. This was attached to fire hydrants near the house and ultimately unsuccessful attempts were made to play water on to the flames now issuing from the roof at the north-east corner.

      Henry Cholmondeley then took a vital decision. Seeing that the fire was still burning fairly slowly, he ordered his human chain to concentrate all efforts on salvaging as much of the contents of the house as possible, many of which were great treasures. Starting on the upper bedroom floors, with the men at the head, then the women and finally, spilling out on to the lawn, the children at the far end, they began by rescuing anything that was easily movable, such as china, glass, pictures, carpets and smaller pieces of furniture. In the vast Library another group was engaged in throwing the thousands of books out of the windows into sheets and blankets held by those below. Others were unscrewing fine mahogany doors, prising out marble chimneypieces and carefully taking down the collection of family portraits.

      ‘The servants behaved with wonderful pluck and coolness,’ observed a reporter from the local paper, ‘in removing furniture from the burning rooms, the maidservants acting as coolly and bravely as the men. The fire, however, was now gaining rapid hold and was fanned by a slight breeze, which caused all the upper rooms of the east wing to blaze fiercely.’¹ At half-past two, the Driffield brigade finally arrived, but, in spite of the fact that there was no shortage of water, their manual pumps proved quite inadequate to the task, the pressure from the reservoir, used solely for household purposes, being far too low. Shortly after three, the Malton Brigade were on the scene, but even their powerful steam-driven pump, which was able to send streams of water on to the roof and into the blazing upper storeys, did no good, the fire being now quite out of control. The best they could do was to keep the walls of the rooms sufficiently cool while the salvage work continued.

      The roof of the east wing was the first to go, falling in with a ‘great crash’, but this seemed merely to strengthen the determination of the workers. ‘Notwithstanding the menacing nature of their task,’ commented the local paper, ‘the rescue parties worked most splendidly, and the way in which the rooms were emptied of their principal contents without confusion or disorder was really wonderful.’ A new hazard was caused by the large quantities of molten lead from the roof, which poured down the walls and threatened to splash anyone who came too close to it. The men worked on undeterred. As one huge painting was carried precariously down a burning staircase, supervised by the under-gamekeeper, he was heard to mutter, ‘Now lads, don’t damage t’frame.’² There were many narrow escapes. ‘A long ladder was placed against an upper window, from which a large wardrobe was being lowered, two men standing on the ladder to steady it. An ominous swaying of the ladder was followed by a crack, and a moment later the ladder snapped, carrying the two men with it. Fortunately they were unhurt beyond a shaking, though the wardrobe was smashed.’³ In the Library, the roof above crashed in and pierced the ceiling, sending burning debris raining down on the group working there, a heavy beam narrowly missing one of their number as it fell thirty feet to the floor. They made their escape down ladders from the open windows, and helped to load the huge quantity of books on to wagons which carted them away to be stored in the church.

      The scene on the lawn was extraordinary, if piteous, with furniture and fittings, china, bed linen and mattresses, statues, gold and silver plate, paintings and books strewn around as far as the eye could see. In the midst of it all the melancholy figure of Sir Tatton paced up and down, his hands held firmly behind his back. He had one last request. In the Hall there stood a very fine piece of sculpture, a copy in marble of the famous Apollo Belvedere which had originally been part of the Duke of Devonshire’s collection at Londesborough. It had been left till last since it was thought it might escape the flames. However, since the centre of the house was by now blazing and roaring as through a gigantic chimney with temperatures that must have been close to 1,000°C, it was obvious that the statue had no chance of survival. Sir Tatton asked if it might be saved, a difficult task as it was reckoned to weigh close to a ton, and though the ceiling of the Hall was still intact, the back and east sides were fiercely blazing. ‘Scores of hands volunteered to remove the statue,’ recorded the correspondent of the Yorkshire Post. ‘Jets of water were poured on the ceiling, and the hall flooded. Water was also poured on the walls behind the statue, which was itself drenched, to render it cool enough to handle. The front door was removed, and the jambs wrenched down to admit the passage of the large life-size figure. With admirable skill it was lowered from its pedestal into the arms of the stalwart farm labourers and helpers, and finally carried out, with barely a break or scratch to the lawn.’ It was the last act of salvage possible.

      Throughout the night the fire brigades worked to keep down the flames, but it was not until noon of the following day that the fire was finally extinguished. Little was left at the end beyond the four outer walls. Looking into the roofless building, one of the more curious sights was a fire-place on the first floor which had miraculously escaped the flames and which remained ready for lighting, complete with paper, sticks and coals. ‘Although I did not see the fire,’ wrote one of Sir Tatton’s grandchildren in later years, ‘the shock and horror among the household, and the blackened ruin with the pungent smell, filled me with fear for a long time.’⁴ Sir Tatton himself showed stoicism in the face of such disaster. ‘All he said when a word of sympathy was offered,’ commented the Yorkshire Post, ‘was, “These things will happen, these things will happen”, repeating the words with resigned fortitude and recognising the utter hopelessness of it all.’⁵ But the correspondent of the Yorkshire Post had not reckoned with the absolute determination of the family who had built and loved this house that it would live again.

       CHAPTER I The Merchant

      A house is more than bricks and mortar. To those who inhabit it, it lives and breathes. It has moods. It has a smell, an indefinable scent that is as peculiar to it as a genetic code is to a human being. It is made from the peculiar mixture of paint, polish, carpets, dogs, leather, wood-smoke, dust, fabrics, plaster, wood, cooking, flowers and numerous other aromas that exist in a home. Pluck me from my bed, blindfold me, drop me anywhere in the world and I could pick out the smell of Sledmere from a thousand others. This is the house in which my family have lived for 250 years. It is where I was brought up and spent my adolescence. Though I left it when I was eighteen, I still feel attached to it as if by some invisible umbilical cord. I do not live there yet my roots are there. For good or for bad, it inhabits my soul.

      From the outside, Sledmere is a plain building, built of grey stone, with a lack of embellishment that makes it seem a little austere. This suits its setting, high up on the Yorkshire Wolds. It is a large country house, always known in the village as ‘the big house’, but it is