Only one generation of the family lived in this rebuilt Hall, during which time
Miss Muriel Bowes-Lyon redesigned the gardens, planting rhododendrons, azaleas
and other flowering shrubs and filling the woods and grassland with innumerable
bulbs, notably snowdrops and daffodils. On the death of the Hon. Francis in
1947 the property was sold, the farmland to the Catholic Trust, and the main
house, some cottages, parkland and gardens to the Revd. E.A.Evans who transferred
to it his boys' prep. school., St. Nicholas, from Hexham, where it remained
for 17 years. With the adjoining National Trust property the area is a nature
reserve for birds, plants and small animals like the red squirrel. The Bowes-Lyons
still live in Beltingham House and retain some property in the village.
(The above text is taken from an article by Mrs Joan Brusey
of Newcastle)
THE HISTORY OF RIDLEY
HALL
In
1812 three members of the Lowes family died within a few weeks, leaving Ridley
Hall in the possession of a daughter, Miss Mary Ann Lowes.
In
1818 she sold the estate to Thomas Bates of Halton Castle for £12,000. He greatly
improved it and in 1826 sold it to the Revd. N.J. Hollingsworth, Rector of Haltwhistle
(of which parish Beltingham was then a chapel of ease) for £16,300. Bates, however,
continued to live at Ridley till 1830, when he and Hollingsworth had a final
quarrel.
By
1567 the original Hall. was known to be in the possession of the Ridley family
of Willimoteswick Castle, the manor house of the district. Only cellars remain
of this house. Bishop Ridley, the martyr who was burnt at the stake in 1555,
was baptised in Beltingham Church. After a fire in the Hall in the middle 18th
century it was rebuilt in Georgian times and must have been a noble house. it
passed into the possession of the Lowes family of Allensgreen nearby.
Soon
after 1830 the estate was bought by Mr John Davidson of Otterburn for his wife,
Susan Hussey Elizabeth Jessup, grand-daughter of the 9th Earl of Strathmore,
and the connection with the Bowes-Lyon family began.
Susan
Jessup was the first of the ladies of Ridley known to have taken a great interest
in the gardens. She laid out 65 flower beds in the formal gardens and organised
the system of paths, rustic bridges, summerhouses and so on in the woods by
the river (now the National Trust property of Allen Banks). In the early 1830's
a Miss Davidson made some very charming pencil sketches of the Georgian Hall
and of views on the estate. Mrs Susan Davidson did much entertaining at Ridley
Hall and kept 16 servants in the 1860's. She died childless and the property
then passed to her cousin John Bowes, the illegitimate son of the 10th Earl
of Strathmore.
This
is the John Bowes who, with his talented French Wife, built the Bowes Museum
at Barnard Castle to house the treasures they had collected in their Paris home.
The Hall thus passed into the Bowes-Lyon family and in 1891, having fallen into
decay, was rebuilt on a lavish scale for the newly married Hon. Francis Bowes-Lyon
and his bride Lady Anne Lindsay.
This
work provided the present main rooms with 8 bedrooms on the first floor and
8 on the floor above (which became the nurseries and schoolroom for their 7
children), while the old Georgian West Wing became the kitchens and servants'
bedrooms. There is much handsome woodwork in the main public rooms and staircase,
and some fine fireplaces, as noted in Pevsmer's book on Northumberland's architecture.
