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

doctor in a series of almost daily letters. They included the ‘Scorbutick disorder’³⁶, endless colds (‘coughed much and my lungs wheezing like a Broken Winded Horse …’),³⁷ toothache (‘I have had a very great pain in my Teeth Gums and Roof of my mouth much Swelled as well as on the right side of my face’,³⁸) piles (‘my piles are yet very troublesome but not so much Heat or Inflamation about the Fundament’),³⁹ and very unpleasant rashes (‘my Wife tells me my back and shoulders are full of red and blue spots with an itching and my armpits full of scurf’).⁴⁰ In return the good doctor kept him well supplied with a battery of different remedies. There were Physick, the Electuary, Asthmatic Elixir, Virgin Wax Sallet Oil, Camomile Tea, Saline Julep, the Spring Potage, Sassafras, Mr Bolton’s Ointment, Rhubarb Tea, Apozem and Basilicon to name a few. Richard lapped them up. ‘I have pursued Dr Chambers directions hitherto in every respect,’ he wrote to his brother Joseph in September, 1759, ‘and am now waiting for what more he may please to send me.’⁴¹

      All indications are that the new house at Sledmere was completed by the end of 1753 and Richard was certainly living there the following summer, for in August he advertised for a butler. ‘I yesterday received your favour of the 23rd,’ he wrote to a friend, Thomas Sidall, ‘informing me you have heard of a Butler that you think will do for me. I want one and such a one as is not fickle as I do not love to see new faces. I beg you will not only be particular in your inquiry if good natured, for I can’t brook with an ill temper or impertinent answers … As I can’t shave myself he must shave as he will chiefly attend me wherever I go.’⁴² The annual salary was £15. 2s. and William Shawe, who was hired to fill the post, was to find himself working in a household of twelve. His fellow servants were listed along with their wages by Richard in his pocket book for 1756 as ‘Sam Hirst, my Coachman. Wages £12. 12s.; Edward Guthrie, my Gardiner. Wages £16. 16s.; Mary Brocklesby, my Housekeeper. Wages £8. 8s.; Thomas Porter, my Groom. Wages £5. 5s. 8d.; James Wellbank, my Postilion. Wages £3. 3s.; Mary Mitchell, my Chamber Maid. Wages £3. 3s.; Mary Banks, my Chamber Maid. Wages £3. 0s.; Susanna Anderson, my Cook Maid. Wages £4. 0s.; Mary Thornton, my Dairy Maid, Wages £3. 5s.; and Robert Collings, Odd Man. Wages £3. 3s.’⁴³

      A drawing dated 1751 of the design for the principal elevation shows the new house to have been a solid comfortable building, three storeys high and of seven bays. It was built in brick with rather heavy stone facings and rusticated windows, and was more typical of the kind of gentleman’s house that would have been erected in the Queen Anne period. A detailed inventory made in January 1755, listing each of the rooms and their contents, shows it to have had eight bedrooms, two dressing rooms, a dining room, drawing room and study (‘my Own Room’), a hall, with a service area which consisted of two kitchens, servants’ hall, butler’s pantry, servants’ bedrooms, a laundry, dairy and brewhouse, and extensive cellars.

      This Pile is polite! Free from Frogs & from Dykes

      And was raised at th’Expense of Worthy Dick Sykes

      The Pond, Full in view is clear of all Stench

      Stock’d with Mackrel, with Carp and gold bellyed Tench,

      The Master is generous! Free from envy and pride

      Loves a Pipe in his Mouth, A Friend by his side.

      wrote Richard’s brother ‘Parson’ in another of his poems entitled ‘Upon the New Structure at Sledmere & the Master’.⁴⁴

      Richard’s inventory gives a clear idea of how the house was furnished. Since carpets are listed in a number of the rooms one must presume that where they are not mentioned, the floor was simply wooden boards. Such was the case in Richard’s sitting room, which is referred to as ‘My Own Room’. It had ‘A Large Stove Grate, A fine open Fender, A Shovel, Tongs & poker, A Sconce Looking Glass, and A Marble Chimney Piece & Hearth’. There were ‘Six Wallnutt Tree Chairs Leather Bottoms, One Liber Stool Cover’d with Leather, One Wallnutt Tree Arm Chair Ditto’. There was ‘A Mahogany Square Table & Tea Chest, One fine Large in Laid Scruetoire & Bookcase, One Mahogany Shaving Stand, with a Glass, A Large Chest mounted with Brass two drawers, and set upon pedestals, A Mahogany Round table a yard Diameter, A Perspective Looking Glass and an Iron Holland Chest’.⁴⁵ There appear to have been no pictures. Those were reserved for his bedroom, described as the ‘Lodging Room Over Kitchen’, which was delightfully comfortable.

      The bed was a four-poster ‘with Mahogeny Poles, Blue Merrine Furniture, two Window Curtains of the same to draw up, a Feather Bed, a Check Cover, a Bolster, two Pillows, a Check Mattress, Three Blanketts and a Blue & White Linnen Quilt’. In this room there were ‘Two Old Bedside Carpets’. The other furniture consisted of ‘an Arm Chair Leather Bottom, Six Mahogeny Chairs Covered with Blue Merrine with Check Covers, A Lib. Stool with a Leather Bottom, A Wallnutt Tree Sconce Looking Glass, A Close Stool with a Pott, A Leather Seat, A Bureau, An Oval Table of Mahogeny, A Wainscott Reading Machine, A Large Mahogeny Book Case with Sash Doors and presses below, A Little Camp Bed with Furniture compleat and A Dressing Table with drawers & a Swing Looking glass’. Then there were ‘Three very fine Blue & White Delph Jarrs with Tops, two Chocolate Cups and saucers, 2 Milk potts, 4 Shoker Basons’. Finally he mentions ‘three Small pictures and My Uncle Mark Kirkby’s Picture’.⁴⁶

      The latter, a half-length portrait, which today hangs in the Red Bedroom at Sledmere and shows him looking rather pompous dressed in his blue coat, has an amusing anecdote attached to it. While my Grandfather, Mark Sykes, was engaged in researching an unpublished Sykes family history, his house carpenter, an old boy called John Truslove, once told him that when he was a very young man and had been employed to move some pictures in the house, he had slipped while taking down the Kirkby portrait and was obliged, with some trepidation, to tell the housekeeper, ‘I’ve cut Mark Kirkby’s throat!’⁴⁷ To confirm the truth of this story I climbed up a ladder and gently touched the lace bands round his neck. Sure enough I felt the place where a gash had been repaired.

      The only other pictures mentioned by Richard in this inventory were ‘Two pictures’ in the Servants’ Hall, ‘Three Black & White prints’ in the Store Room, ‘my Bro. Joseph Sykes picture’ in the Crimson Dressing Room, and ‘My Niece Polly’s Picture’, which hung over the chimneypiece of the dressing room adjoining ‘my Best Lodging Room’. This is where he would have kept his clothes, also minutely catalogued under the heading ‘My Wearing Linnen’ and including such finery as ‘fine Point Ruffles, Dresden Ruffles, fine Mechlin Ruffles, Fine New Holland Shirts, Ruffled Shirts, A Velvet Suit, Coat, Waistcoat & Breeches, a Light Gray Coat Lined with Crimson Silk Trimed with Gold Lace, a Flowered Silk pair of Breeches, etc, etc.’⁴⁸

      So proud did Richard soon become of his new house that he would take great umbrage if it came to his notice that strangers to the neighbourhood had been to visit the much grander house at Castle Howard but had not been to Sledmere. He was thus delighted when, in April, 1755, he was approached by Edwin Lascelles, one of the richest men in Yorkshire, who was about to start work on building a new house at Harewood, near Leeds. He too had inherited an old manor house, Gawthorpe Hall, and was looking to Richard for advice on how to go about starting anew. ‘I am going into Mortar Pell-Mell,’ he wrote, ‘and shall stand much in need of the experience and assistance of such Adepts as you. The first step, I am told, is to provide the main materials; & wood & Iron being of the number,