If you've ever read about John Richard Stubbs and his family on this blog – A Boroughbridge Boyhood in the 1850s introduces them – you might remember his visits to Taitlands, the country house near Settle where his mother's sister Jane Henlock lived with her husband Thomas Redmayne (c1797-1862) and their children.
Jane was Thomas's third wife – the first two died young, probably in childbirth – and she brought up his daughter Jane and her own two children, Mary and Henry.
And now you can see photographs of Taitlands, which was for many years a youth hostel and has,over the last decade been lovingly restored to glory. I'm sure the estate agents who are offering it for sale won't mind if I reproduce one of the photos here – perhaps it will prompt a reader to buy this beautiful house!
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| Taitlands, near Settle |
John Stubbs describes visiting Taitlands several times in his diaries. The house was barely twenty years old when he first knew it, as Thomas Redmayne had only begun building it in 1831, and so it must all have looked very new and grand to John. When he was a teenage boy at Giggleswick School he used to visit the family. In 1853 for example:
Saturday 29 January 1853 Went to Taitlands Aunt was poorly rode the horses came home with Uncle
One Friday, he went out there with a schoolfriend without telling Mrs Stubbs, with whom he was lodging, where he was going. Mrs Mary Ann Stubbs was another of his aunts, the widow of his father's brother William Morley Stubbs. She helped her sister Miss Isabella Henlock keep a school at The Terrace, Settle. They also took in boys who attended Giggleswick School as lodgers:
Friday 30 September 1853In the evening walked with T Bramley to Taitlands on the sly Mrs Stubbs & Co knew not
After John left school, he visited the Redmayne family there on several occasions.
In August 1856 he stayed there for three weeks and described in his diary driving his aunt and cousins in the Phaeton – going shooting – taking a shot at a rabbit in a field "where I ought not" – visiting old schoolfriends – and enjoying "a little dance" when visitors came to Taitlands.
In 1857 he travelled there with his aunt Miss Isabella Henlock (not to be confused with her second cousin Miss Isabella Henlock of Settle). Aunt Bell was there to visit her sister Jane Redmayne, and John was there to combine business with pleasure. He went shooting with his cousin Henry Redmayne ("shot 2 hares"), went to Skipton Sessions from Settle station, and enjoyed the social life of Settle. "Lots of folks" came to tea at Taitlands after calling on on his friend Thomas Stackhouse of Stainforth, who had recently married.
On Wednesday 13 January 1858 he travelled there for the wedding of his friend Dr Leonard William Sedgwick to Thomas Redmayne's daughter Jane. John was one of the groomsmen and he stayed with Thomas Stackhouse. I describe the customs of the weddings in rural Yorkshire in A Boroughbridge Boyhood in the 1850s: “Helped to arrange about the Wedding Breakfast”. This was quite the grandest affair that John attended in those years:
Wednesday January 13Went with Leonard & Mary Sedgwick to Taitlands to Leonards Wedding he paid my fare Tom Sedgwick joined us at Leeds Fanny Stubbs met us at Settle Station Had a Fly to Taitlands Had tea there Tom Sedgwick Wm Nixon & I went to sleep at Stackhouses Leonard went to Richardsons
Thursday January 14Went to Taitlands to 1st breakfast & helped Uncle to arrange. Went back to Stackhouse’s got dressed Took Leond to Church & they got wed. Tom Sedgwick I Wm Stubbs Wm Nixon & Hy Redmayne were Groomsmen Miss Nixon Mary Redmayne Mary Sedgwick Fanny Stubbs & Margaret Ingelby were bridesmaids. Went to Taitlands Sat down 30 to breakfast at ½ past 12 Bride & Groom started about 2. We some of us walked to Stainforth Foss & on to the rock in front of Taitlands went & had a 1st tea at Stackhouses Went to Taitlands we were above 50 of us Had a splendid dance Got to Stackhouses about ½ past 3 Went to bed about 5 Everything passed off firstrately
In September 1859 he left the office in Boroughbridge at about 2 o'clock taking three ferrets with him and arrived at Settle station at about 8 o'clock. He visited friends and family in the area and he and his cousin Henry went about with guns and with the ferrets. He spent his 21st birthday at Taitlands, going morning and afternoon to Stainforth Church – went with his aunt around Giggleswick and Settle as she made calls on friends and acquaintances – and went with the Redmaynes to Clapham to visit their relations the Marriner family at the vicarage and to have fun at Clapham Fair. He and Henry went to a circus at Settle, went rabbiting about Horton, and shooting in Austwick Wood. His stay lasted nearly three weeks.
And then in 1862 Thomas and Jane Redmayne died within days of each other. Their son-in-law Leonard certified that Thomas died of "Chronic softening of the Brain 12 months" and of bronchitis, from which he had suffered for four weeks; Jane died of cancer.
Their son Henry was only twenty years old, and the executors looked for tenants for Taitlands:
Yorkshire Gazette, 5 April 1862To be Let, and may be Entered upon forthwith, Taitlands, a desirable Residence ... in the midst of very Romantic Scenery, with the Gardens and Grounds, and Seventeen and a Half Acres of Rich Grass Land. The House comprises Entrance Hall, Dining, Drawing, and Breakfast Rooms, Eight Bed Rooms, besides Man Servant's Room, and Attics, Butler's Pantry, good Kitchens, Scullery, and excellent Cellars. The Rooms are spacious and lofty. The House is in good Repair, and in every respect a suitable Gentleman's Residence. Good Coach House, Stables, Harness Room, and other convenient Outbuildings adjoining ...
The following year Henry's sister Mary married Dr James Sedgwick of Boroughbridge . He was Leonard's younger brother and they were married in London, presumably from Leonard and Jane's house:
Five years later, Henry died at Taitlands:Morning Post 19 February 1863Sedgwick - Redmayne. On the 14th inst., at St Thomas's, Portman-square, by the Rev W Richardson, incumbent of Stainforth, Yorkshire, James Sedgwick, Esq., of Boroughbridge, to Mary, younger daughter of the late Thomas Redmayne, Esq., of Taitlands, Settle, Yorkshire
Yorkshire Post & Leeds Intelligencer, 19 March 1868Redmayne - March 13, at Taitlands, near Settle, aged 26, Henry Redmayne, Esq
Yorkshire Post & Leeds Intelligencer, 21 March 1868Stainforth - Military Funeral - At Stainforth, on Wednesday, the members of the North Craven Rifles attended the funeral of Ensign Redmayne, who died on the 13th inst., aged 26 years. The mournful procession, headed by the rifle corps, the band playing the "Dead March," proceeded from the deceased gentleman's residence, at Taitlands, to St Peter's Church, Stainforth, where his body was interred in the family vault. The funeral service was read by the Rev Mr Hearnley, after which the accustomed number of three volleys were fired over the grave by the members of the corps
The Taitlands estate was offered for sale by Messrs Hirst & Capes of Knaresborough on 4 April 1868. Hepper & Sons of Leeds sold the contents of the house. A couple of their auction advertisements in the Yorkshire Post that June give us a flavour of the life that the family had known:
The Cabinet Furniture of Drawing, Dining, and Breakfast Rooms, in rosewood and Spanish mahogany; Chimney and Pier Glasses, Window Furniture, superior Brussels and Tapestry Carpets, Hearth Rugs, a number of Engravings, a few Books, a small collection of old China, Entrance Hall and fittings, a valuable Eight Days' Clock, which chimes every quarter and strikes the hours: cases of Stuffed Birds, Fire and Side Arms, the mahogany and other appointments of nine Bed and Dressing Rooms, Cut Glass, and transparent and stone China, in services; excellent Kitchen, Scullery, Laundry, and Dairy requisites
The Library of Books, loose Engravings, contents of bedrooms Nos. 5, 6, and 7, valuable guns, superior double brougham, two sets superior harness, Green's lawn mower, and various other effects.John's friend Thomas Stackhouse bought the house. He died on 1 April 1872, aged 38, leaving his widow and children to live in the house for many more years.
