Summary
Park laid out in late C18 and enclosed by Charles Waterton (1782-1865) to form nature reserve in 1821 to 1826 with early- to mid-C19 additions by him.
Reasons for Designation
Waterton Park, a late-C18 designed landscape repurposed as a nature reserve in the early C19 by Charles Waterton, is registered at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Design interest:
* it is widely considered to be the first dedicated nature reserve for the protection of native wild species in the world, following Charles Waterton’s explicit repurposing and enclosure of the park by a high boundary wall in 1821-1826 to protect wildlife from poachers and foxes.
Historic interest:
* for its association with Charles Waterton (1782-1865) a pioneering naturalist, researcher and adventurer of the early C19, who believed on the need for, and benefit of, a harmonious balance between humans and the natural world, with a deep antipathy to the harming of wildlife (especially birds) by mankind;
* Waterton used the nature reserve for scientific research, with the construction of artificial nesting/roosting boxes and stone watch towers for observation, enhancing the habitats of different bird species, whilst concurrently actively encouraging visitors from all walks of life to reconnect with nature by enjoying picnics and socialising in the grounds.
Group value:
* it has strong group value with the numerous listed buildings and structures contained within the landscape, including Walton Hall (Grade II*) situated on an island in the lake, and Charles Waterton’s grave by the south end of the lake (Grade II).
History
In 1435 Richard Waterton married Constance Assenhull and built a fortified hall with a moat at Walton near Wakefield (the ruined gateway of which remains). The family were Roman Catholics and subsequently during the Reformation they lost favour, though they managed to keep their property. During the nearby Siege of Sandal Castle in 1645 in the English Civil Wars, Walton Hall was also attacked and damaged by parliamentary forces.
Later, when Charles Waterton died in 1767 his eldest son Thomas succeeded and immediately set about rebuilding Walton Hall and remodelling the grounds, enlarging the medieval moat into a lake which became a focal point for the park, with the new Georgian house standing on an island formed from the former moated site at the northern end. This was described in the Universal British Directory of 1793 as “elegantly situated, the house standing on a rock in a very fine sheet of water, which has received prodigious improvement from the present possessor, who, at immense expense, has taken out twelve or fourteen thousand loads of soil, with which he improves his grass-grounds”. Some of the soil was mounded along the banks of the lake and planted with trees to provide undulation and variety in the scenery.
In 1780 Thomas married heiress Anne Bedingfield and their son, Charles, was born in 1782. Charles Waterton (1782-1865), renowned naturalist, explorer, and noted eccentric, was educated at Stonyhurst, a Jesuit college in Lancashire. In 1804, he was sent to Demerara in modern-day Guyana to manage his father and uncle’s sugar plantations, then worked by slaves; Charles later demonstrated his antipathy of slavery, writing in 1825, “slavery can never be defended; he whose heart is not of iron can never wish to be able to defend it”. He did not inherit enslaved people or plantations and did not receive compensation when the practice ended in the 1830s. Having handed the plantation management back to his relatives in 1812, Charles Waterton set off on an expedition into the Demerara interior where he obtained samples of the paralyzing curare; his subsequent research led to the widespread use of the drug in anaesthesia. His studies and observations of the wildlife in an environment untouched by man also deepened his, then highly unusual, beliefs for a human balance with nature.
Waterton inherited Walton Hall in 1805 whilst abroad. In 1813 he returned home to live, though continuing with his worldwide explorations, which he referred to as “wanderings”, throughout his life, studying animals and birds, and writing numerous accounts and essays which regularly featured in the Illustrated London News. His influential “Wanderings in South America, the north-west of the United States, and the Antilles in the years 1812, 1816, 1820, and 1824” was published in 1825. His careful and detailed studies of wildlife also led to a series of highly regarded “Essays in Natural History” in 1838, 1844 and 1857, mostly about the wildlife of Britain. During his travels, Waterton also collected animal and bird specimens and he became a renowned taxidermist, developing a new technique using mercury chloride as a preservative, which he taught John Edmonstone, a slave on Charles Edmonstone’s (Waterton’s future father-in-law) Guyana plantation. After being freed Edmonstone travelled to Britain with his former master and settled in Scotland where he taught taxidermy to students at the University of Edinburgh, including Charles Darwin. Waterton established his own museum taxidermy collection (now owned by Stonyhurst College) at Walton Hall.
In 1817 Waterton returned again to his estate at Walton Hall after a trip to South America and Demerara. Dismayed by the effects poaching combined with a prevalence of foxes was inflicting upon the wildlife on his land, particularly wildfowl, he came up with the idea of turning the lake and park at Walton into a bird sanctuary. Nesting sites were prepared for birds, the keepers and their dogs were forbidden to enter the coverts during nesting season, no boats were allowed on the lake between late autumn and early May, and the discharging of firearms within the park was strictly prohibited; also no vermin were to be destroyed except brown rats. In 1821, after returning from another trip to South America and Demerara, Waterton continued with his plan of turning the estate into a sanctuary for birds and other wildlife by commencing to build a high stone wall around the park to keep poachers and foxes out and wildlife in. Every time he had 500 guineas to spare, saved by his lifelong commitment of not drinking alcohol, he would buy a quantity of stone and employ masons until the money ran out, evidenced in the many phases of construction. The resulting wall was over three miles long and between nine and ten feet high depending upon the adjacent land. Completed in 1826, it cost around £10,000 to build. Richard Hobson, a friend, was later to describe the park in his reminiscences of Waterton, saying “The ground within these walls has an agreeably undulating surface, is well wooded, and is enlivened by a splendid sheet of water.” (Hobson, 1866).
Waterton’s aim was explicitly to protect the wildlife and an article published in 1835 in The Magazine of Natural History and Journal of Zoology, Botany, Mineralogy, Geology, and Meteorology (vol VIII) says that Mr Waterton “did everything that love for birds could suggest, to make them come and settle there. This protection of birds enables them to perform their daily functions without fear and trembling”. In a letter dated 1849 Waterton wrote “My carrion crows, herons, hawks, and magpies have done very well this year and I have a fine breed of kingfishers. They may thank their stars that they have my park wall to protect them. But for it their race would be extinct in this depraved and demoralised part of Yorkshire”. Another commentator writing in the same year described how, “Here roaming unconstrained and at free liberty, every bird and animal can be examined in its true character.” (The Naturalist by James Stuart Menteath published in The Mirror, 1835).
To further encourage the observation and pleasure of birds within the enclosed park Waterton built various structures. This included the provision of artificial nesting boxes in the decayed trunks of trees with artificial roofs to protect the cavities from the rain with holes pierced in the stems for the birds to enter. Amongst the nesting boxes provided were those for owls, one of his favourite birds, and nesting towers for starlings and jackdaws. Fifty-six recesses were built in a new garden wall with a sandbank behind it for sand martins. The far end of the lake was also kept in a swampy condition to encourage herons and waterfowl. He built a number of hides scattered around the park from which to observe their behaviour at close quarters, whilst also sheltering from the weather and keeping a lookout for poachers. The first edition 1:10560 Ordnance Survey map (surveyed 1849-51, published 1854) has various watch houses (hides) and summer houses labelled within the park. Waterton kept careful notes on the nesting and feeding behaviours of individual species, recording one hundred and twenty-three species who visited his sanctuary, and one winter counted over 5,000 waterfowl on the lake. He particularly delighted in observing the rookery and heronry in wooded areas within the park, rooks and herons generally being persecuted at the time, as were birds of prey, a practice which Waterton vehemently opposed, referring to their wanton destruction by “rascally gamekeepers”. A grotto was also built within woodland and overlooking a grove of spruce fir planted to encourage birds. At the base of a rocky bank was a small temple with a table and benches and at the summit was a large, circular temple. Waterton often sat at the brink of the bank, looking over the stream and smaller temple below, the artificial nesting tower and the spruce fir grove, and often brought visitors here to observe the birds.
In addition to his personal use of the park, Waterton actively encouraged visitors and local residents to visit the park to connect with nature, picnic in the grounds, often at the grotto, and visit the natural history museum in his home containing his taxidermy collection. In one year alone 18,000 visited, including therapeutic visits from mental asylum patients.
Waterton’s dedication to his wildlife sanctuary was also lead him to become an early environmental campaigner, together with his neighbour Sir William Pilkington, fighting a long-running court case against a soap works owned by Hodgson and Simpson of Wakefield. Set up close to his estate in 1839, the works sent out poisonous chemicals that severely damaged the trees in the park and polluted the lake, as well as affecting the whole neighbourhood with crops failing, livestock sickening and watercourses poisoned. Waterton also wrote to a local newspaper to say that even “Simpson’s operatives are the very personification of death alive. There is not a single cherry-cheeked fresh or healthy looking man among them “. After three expensive court cases Simpson was forced to relocate elsewhere.
Charles Waterton died at Walton Hall on 25 May 1865 after a fall in the estate grounds and is buried at the south-east end of the lake.
The estate passed to Waterton’s only child, Edmund Waterton. Having run up large debts, Edmund sold Walton Hall in 1876. The house was used as a maternity home in the mid C20, later becoming Waterton Park Hotel. In 1995 Waterton Park Golf Club opened with a course set around the lake within the enclosed park.
Waterton’s pioneering approach to conservation was highly influential worldwide and Waterton Lakes National Park in Canada, now part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a biosphere reserve, is named after him.
Details
Park laid out in late C18 and enclosed by Charles Waterton (1782-1865) to form nature reserve in 1821 to 1826 with early- to mid-C19 additions by him.
LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING: Waterton Park is situated around 4km south-east of Wakefield in an area which is predominantly rural and agricultural.
The site of around 105 hectares is approximately lozenge shaped with gently undulating land which rises from an elongated lake of around 12 hectares. The park boundary is formed by a high stone wall. The west side of the wall is bounded by the disused Barnsley Canal (partly infilled). A short distance south of Sike Lane the wall turns in a south-easterly direction along the edge of fields and through the northern end of Haw Park (woodland). On the east side of Haw Park the wall turns north-east along the edge of fields and former location of Stubbed Farm House (demolished). The east side of the boundary wall then continues in an approximately northern direction along the edge of fields, angled in a north-westerly direction at the northern end. The wall circumference is completed by a straight section running south-west to a corner with the west side, edged by fields and a small number of modern houses forming part of the village of Walton.
ENTRANCES AND APPROACHES: the principal entrance is on the west side of the park off The Balk, a lane from Walton to the immediate north. The Balk runs eastwards before turning south to run parallel to the former Barnsley Canal. At this corner the drive continues eastwards, crossing over the late-C18 Walton Hall Canal Bridge (Grade II, NHLE:1135575) and passing through the boundary wall. The original lodge has been demolished and is now the site of a modern house. The drive then leads to the north end of the lake, passing through a pair of stone gate piers (Grade II, NHLE:1135578) to a C20 parking area, originally the location of the drive turning area and a fisherman’s hut built by Charle Waterton. On the south side an iron pedestrian bridge of around 1800 (Grade II* and Scheduled Monument, NHLE: 1200153, 1005791) gives access to the island upon which Walton Hall stands. Also on the west side of the park is a secondary entrance through the boundary wall. It is reached off Sike Lane which runs eastwards from the southern end of The Balk and crosses over the canal via Haw Park Bridge (Grade II, NHLE:1200056). This entrance gives access to several small buildings with their west elevations incorporated into the boundary wall; there is no drive through the park from here. On the east side of the park boundary wall is an entrance with gate piers for a former track across the fields to Nostell Priory around 4km to the east (shown on 1:10560 Ordnance Survey map surveyed in 1849-51). On the west side of the boundary wall towards the northern end is a well-formed pedestrian doorway into the park. There is also a blocked pedestrian doorway in the north-east section beyond Haw Park which may be secondary as it is less well formed.
PRINCIPAL BUILDING: Walton Hall (Grade II*, NHLE:1135579) was built around 1768 for Thomas Waterton. The classical Georgian house stands on an island at the northern end of the lake and replaces a medieval moated house. It is presently used as a hotel. The island has a late-C18 stone retaining wall including two boathouses and a landing stage to the west (Grade II, NHLE:1300899). On the north side of the island is a medieval watergate (Grade II and Scheduled Monument, NHLE:1313226, 1005791) and on the south side is a multi-gnomoned polyhedron sundial dated 1813 by G Boulby (Grade II, NHLE:1135580). On the northern edge of the lake beyond the C20 parking area is a modern hotel building, with the quadrangular stable block for the hall to its rear (Grade II, NHLE:1313227). At the north-east corner of the lake is a culvert and sluice (Grade II, NHLE:1200188) designed to take surface water from the lake at times of flooding, the stream passing through the grotto, and then formerly flowing through a trap reservoir intended to retain any fish that had escaped the lake during a flood, before exiting the park to the north as Drain Brook.
GARDENS AND PLEASURE GROUNDS: the park is enclosed by a high stone boundary wall of around nine to ten feet (3m), though varying in height at some points. It remains largely intact, though damaged by trees in places, and is discernible even where there have been more severe collapses. Phased construction is clear in places, marked by changes in the size of stones being used (confirming Winterton’s approach of constructing as much as he was able with a set amount of money and then continuing once he had saved another amount).
The west section of wall containing the main drive gateway is of squared sandstone blocks with coping. It is partly flanked by the ditch of the empty canal (infilled at northern end). The drive gateway is flanked by tall square gate piers of squared blocks with moulded stone caps (left-hand gate pier presently covered in ivy). On the north side of the gateway a short section running behind the golf club building outside the wall has been reduced in height and an archway incorporated to allow access to a pedestrian footbridge over the canal linking the clubhouse to the course within the enclosed park. The pedestrian gateway in the wall beyond has a stone sill, monolithic stone jambs and lintel, with a later iron railing gate. On the south side of the gateway the wall is angled down to meet a former wall of the lodge with a tall, round-headed window overlooking the canal. At Haw Park Bridge the wall does a short dogleg before returning to run parallel to the canal again. In this corner is a wide gateway with two tall, square gate piers of squared blocks with stone pyramidal caps and modern wooden double gates. The wall is angled up from the right-hand gate pier and then shortly abuts a line of single-storey, stone buildings to the right. The wall here is constructed of rubblestone and narrow, roughly-shaped stones. Beyond the buildings the wall is covered in ivy; where it is visible towards the south-west corner it is constructed of rendered rubblestone. The southern section of the wall is also largely of roughly-coursed rubblestone, which is partly rendered; where the render has worn off the rubblestone is deeply weathered in places. Coping is of triangular-shaped stones and in places the wall is stepped. The east section of wall contains the Nostell Priory gateway with tall, square gate piers of squared blocks with pyramidal caps. The wall to the south of the gateway is more extensively collapsed. To the north of the gateway the wall is again of squared sandstone blocks; towards the northern end the size and shape of the coursed stonework shows how the wall was heightened over time. There are a number of diagonal stone buttresses to the wall exterior. At the north corner is a square pier and the wall returns down the hillside. Towards the right-hand end is a round-arched archway enabling the Drain Beck to exit the park.
Within the park wall the layout of the grounds is similar to that shown on the 1849-51 Ordnance Survey map. Towards the centre is a large, approximately comma-shaped lake with Walton Hall on an island at the northern end, a small, treed island to the south and a narrower, curved southern end disappearing into a wooded area where it is fed by a stream. The south-eastern end of the lake has reduced slightly in the latter part of the C20 and this area, known as Stubbs Wood, was more extensively planted. Charles Waterton’s grave with iron railing enclosure and stone cross (Grade II, NHLE:1474092) which originally lay right alongside the lake edge here now lies in the trees approximately 75 metres north-east of the south-eastern tip of the lake.
There is a belt of trees alongside much of the western, northern and north-eastern sides of the boundary wall, the trees on the north-eastern side expanding into a wider wooded area and containing the ruined remains of a watch house. There is also a sweep of trees, now partly truncated at its northern end, leading down to the eastern bank of the lake to join with Stubbs Wood. On the south-west side of the lake the northern end of Haw Park Wood is enclosed, known as the Heronry in Charles Waterton’s time; he observed their habits through a telescope from the drawing room windows of Walton Hall. Within the trees is one of Charles Waterton’s watch houses which was restored in 2005 (by the Rotary Club of Wakefield with a Local Heritage Initiative Lottery award). The circular tower is built of coursed stone blocks with a doorway with stone lintel on one side; the conical stone slate roof has been reconstructed on the ground to one side.
In the wooded area to the north of the stable block and on the east side of the outflow stream (Drain Back) is the site of Charles Waterton’s grotto, presently overgrown. The stream here is bounded by coursed stone walls and several monolithic stone block bridges cross it with a flight of stone steps alongside on the west side. On the east side of the stream a terraced area is enclosed by a curving bank faced with a high masonry wall with a large, round-headed niche towards the north end. There are the stone remains of several structures on the terraced area including six squared stone columns with circular tenons formerly part of the small temple (historic photographs show the columns supporting a stone slate conical roof with ball finial), masonry from built structures, stone steps, walls and gate piers, and the shaped, square base of a large cross which formerly stood on top of the bank. At the summit of the bank are eight standing stone columns of half-and-half square and circular sections, forming the outline of the large circular temple (also missing its roof) with traces of kiln tiles used for the floor surface. Adjacent are stone steps in the bank wall with a recess on one side to fit a bench overlooking the terraced area and trees below.
Throughout the park there are a variety of trees including oaks, ashes, horse chestnuts and smaller hazels, hollies and alders, perpetuating Charles Waterton’s mixed planting to encourage birds.
The open grassed areas within the park are now mostly laid out as a golf course with small groups of trees planted to break up the greens – these areas largely correspond to the historic open areas, which also had small groups or lines of trees, although the eastern side of the park was mainly open grassland. Two new small water features have also been introduced here, but the small water feature on the western side of the lake is in an historic location.
KITCHEN GARDEN: the kitchen gardens and orchard lie on the north side of the stable block. Their position and partial layout is shown by the survival of brick and stone walls, the walls close to the stable block are faced in stone to the outer, visible faces and brick to the inner faces, with stone coping. To the rear of a modern garage block on the west side of the stable block is a corner gateway in the garden wall with large, square, stone block gate piers and a monolithic stone lintel. The abutting wall on the north side is ramped with a fall in the ground level on the east side. The wall on the northern side of the site has a pedestrian gateway with stone quoin jambs and stone lintel. The gardens and orchard are now mostly rough grazing with the odd fruit tree remaining. Close to the stable block are gardens associated with the converted domestic residences.
