Report on Visit to Pocklington School and Kilnwick Hall
Dolman House, Pocklington School
Dolman Hall, 1868 incorporating a Georgian door case.
Saturday, 20th April 2019
Our Maundy Thursday trip to Pocklington and Kilnwick Percy was blessed by the bright sun of what has proved to be the warmest Easter weekend for many years.
Our guide around Pocklington School was Darrell Buttery MBE. As a former President of the York Civic Society and a current governor of the school, Mr Buttery was able to give a very informed guided tour of the buildings and an entertaining account of the eccentric, and occasionally downright disreputable, headmasters of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. One more unexpected feature of the buildings is the incorporation of large amounts of architectural salvage, including elaborate door cases, fireplaces and whole staircases.
Kilnwick Percy Hall was badly treated during its occupation by the RAF in the Second World War and was rather brutally reduced in size in 1954. Much of what remains owes its character to the refurbishment by Arthur Duncombe in the 1840s. The rich French style decoration of the Ballroom blends surprisingly well with the rich stylised Buddhist Art of the Madhyamaka Buddhist Centre which has been based there since the 1980s. Here we were also given a very good guided tour by a member of staff.
http://www.pocklingtonschool.com/
https://madhyamaka.org/historic-building-and-grounds/
Kilnwick Percy Hall, near Pocklington, East Yorkshire
Like a lot of country houses, the earliest occupation of the site stretches back into the mists of time. In 1574 Thomas Wood began a grand Elizabethan House here, but it was unfinished at the time of his death ten years later. The houses was only finished in the 1720s when the estate passed to Sir Edmund Anderson. Anderson's ... (read more...)
Kilnwick Percy Hall in 2019
Darrell Buttery MBE
Kilnwick Percy Hall, the ballroom.
