Stone house at the top of a slope leading down to a pond
Gardens,  History,  Monday walks,  Newcastle-upon-Tyne

The faded grandeur and gardens of Gibside

August 27, 2024 / 38 Comments

While many of England’s grand houses were (and in some cases still are) home to the aristocracy, others were built by those hoping to emulate or even join that exclusive set. The so-called ‘landed gentry’ indeed had land but no titles, although they aspired to climb the social ladder. Among them was Sir George Bowes, a coal baron from north east England.

When he inherited the modest estate of Gibside he was determined to make his mark. He improved the Jacobean Hall already there and employed architects and landscape gardeners to develop the estate as befitted his wealth. A great Column to Liberty was commissioned, 43 metres tall, that could be seen for many miles through the Derwent and Tyne valleys. It stood at one end of an avenue of trees and at the other end Sir George planned an elegant chapel, although he died before this was completed (and is buried beneath it).

His stable block was so impressive that guests arriving in front of it along a long carriageway might have taken it for the main house itself. And on a rise above a pretty lake he had built a banqueting house where he and his friends would take refreshments after touring the estate. That is the scene featured in my photo at the top of this page. Today Gibside is in the hands of the National Trust. It has had a chequered history and several of the grand buildings are now in ruins, including the Hall itself. But the extensive grounds still give a good sense of what Sir George was aiming to achieve. I’ll say a bit more about that later in this post, but for now I want to invite you to join me on a Monday Walk around the estate.

The Liberty Trail

There are four suggested walks on the map you are given on entry to the estate. This currently costs £15 for an adult but is free for National Trust members. The walks vary in length from just over two miles to five and half miles, but you are free to wander wherever you want on the many paths, combining parts of walks, skipping sections and so on. Each walk has a different emphasis: history, fun for children, views and nature. We chose the two and half mile Liberty Trail which focuses on the architecture and history of the estate. It was easy to follow as coloured arrows, purple in this case, mark all four routes around the estate.

The Walled Garden

Our walk started in the large walled garden with a series of flower beds that delayed us for some time as we wandered among them taking photos. They were planted in an informal style that I suspect is very different from Sir George’s time.

Lots of yellow flowers and long grass
Yellow flower among a sea of others
Sunflower against a blue sky
White flower with a bee
The Orangery

Sir George’s only child was his much-loved daughter, Mary Eleanor. She was said to be the wealthiest heiress in Georgian England. Well-educated (much more so than was the norm for girls in those days) she had a passion for botany and commissioned plant collector William Paterson to explore South Africa in search of rare and new species. To house them she had an orangery erected on the estate, with an underfloor heating system to protect the exotic plants.

Today the Orangery is in ruins but its arches form a striking feature and there are still pretty flowers planted in its raised beds.

Brick arches open to the sky
Deep red flower by a brick wall
Gibside Hall

Today the main house stands in ruins and is sealed off from public access, but you can view it from the outside. It was built in the 1620s, some time before Sir George’s era, and improved by him although his main focus was on turning the estate into a grand setting for his home.

The house was abandoned as a family home in the 1870s but later put to use during WW1 as a base for Land Army girls. It was stripped of its fixtures and fittings in the 1920s and the roof removed in the 1950s.

Very large stone house with a lawn and trees
Gibside Hall
To the stable block

We followed a woodland path that led us to the stable block. This is still largely intact and houses a café where we stopped for a coffee. Some of the stalls are little changed from when they would have housed horses.

Tall trees and dappled sunlight
Looking up at tall trees and dappled sunlight
Backlit fern
Rusty ring on a stone wall
Lantern hanging from a roof in a building with rough walls
Bird life

A path through more woodland led us next to the Octagon Pond, overlooked by the Banqueting House and home to a variety of ducks.

Pond surrounded by trees
The Octagon Pond

A nearby hide promised more bird photo opportunities, but I was disappointed to find all the feeders empty. However we did see a friendly robin here.

Small bird on a fence post
Robin near the hide
The Liberty Column

The Column to Liberty is 43 metres (140 feet) tall and was erected by Sir George to emphasise his own importance and standing in society. The female figure on the top holds the symbolic Staff of Maintenance and Cap of Liberty which assert his political support of the Whig Party.

Stone column with a sculpted figure set among trees
Stone column with a sculpted figure
Top of a stone column with a sculpted figure
The Chapel

The column overlooks one end of the oak tree lined grassy avenue on a slight rise. At the avenue’s opposite end is the chapel, one of a handful of buildings here still intact. It’s possible to go inside where there is an unusual three-tiered pulpit and a delicately painted dome.

Solid stone building with a small dome
Inside a church with a tall wooden pulpit and pale painted dome
Couple in old-fashioned costumes

The story of Mary Eleanor Bowes

In the chapel’s porch we met two of the National Trusts ‘Time Bandits’. These are enactors who help to bring the story of the Bowes family to life. In my introduction I touched on the ambitions of Sir George, and I’ve also already mentioned that he had just one child, a daughter, Mary Eleanor. The couple at the chapel introduced themselves as Mary and her second husband. What they told us about ‘themselves’ intrigued me, so I looked into more of Mary’s history.

Woman in old-fashioned dress
Time Bandit: Mary Eleanor Bowes

Mary’s first husband was John Lyon, 9th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, bringing the Bowes family into the orbit of the British aristocracy. He took the Bowes name, becoming a Bowes-Lyon, and if that name seems familiar you may be thinking of our late Queen’s mother, born Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon. Yes, Sir George’s ambition had been realised and his descendants had eventually been fully integrated into the aristocracy.

Meanwhile however Mary Eleanor’s story took an unfortunate turn. When her first husband died she remarried, and her second husband, Andrew ‘Stoney’ Robinson Bowes, proved to be a thoroughly horrible and abusive man. I won’t go into the details here; you can read the full story in Wikipedia. Suffice it to say that he ran up debts, sold off much of the Gibside estate’s timber and neglected the buildings. He also treated Mary Eleanor appallingly. The story of their marriage inspired William Makepeace Thackeray’s novel, The Luck of Barry Lyndon, which later Stanley Kubrick adapted for his film, Barry Lyndon.

This is the fascinating backdrop to the estate of Gibside, a place where the ambitions and struggles of the Bowes family are imprinted on its landscapes and buildings.

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