NESTLING at the foot of a hill in Heslington village about two miles or so from York city centre is a magnificent Tudor-style building that was one of the first buildings, along with Kings Manor, to constitute the University of York.

Built in the shape of an E, with a stone pillared entrance porch surrounded by the Yarburgh coat-of-arms, the external principal part of Helsington Hall had scarcely altered since the time it was built, that is, until 1854 when Graeme Yarburgh of Sowerby Hall Bridlington commissioned Philip Charles Hardwick to rebuild the hall in the Victorian Jacobean style.

Supposedly built for the reception of Queen Elizabeth I between 1565-1568, this impressive manor house was constructed for Thomas Eynns who was the Secretary and Keeper of the Seal to the Council of the North. However, there is no record of Good Queen Bess ever having stayed there. Historically, properties such as Heslington Hall, rarely passed directly down a family line from father to son, because of high levels of mortality and proprietors who died childless.

On Eynns’ death, the house passed into the Hesketh family and subsequently to the Yarburghs. Historians note that Heslington Hall escaped destruction during the Civil War when its occupants had surely been Royalist sympathisers.

Heslington Hall then passed down the generations through the familial ties of Yarburghs, Lloyds and Batesons with George William Bateson assuming the additional surname of de Yarburgh by Royal Licence in 1876.

The Hall was eventually passed on to Sir Thomas Bateson who was created Baron Deramore in 1885 and the estate remained the property of the Deramore baronetcy until 1956.

During his tenure the 3rd Lord Deramore (1893-1936) removed the spirelets from the towers and at around the time of the First World War replaced the Hall’s black slate roofs with tiles.

The gardens behind the house were laid out in the early 18th century by James Yarburgh and his sons, and the red brick gazebo (nowadays called The Quiet Place) was the only piece of Georgian building belonging to the hall.

Today we can continue to admire the yew trees whose massive topiary gives the gardens dignity and forms a backdrop to the solitude of the Quiet Place.

At the far end of Heslington village you can see a row of almshouses which were built in 1903 by the third Lord Deramore in memory of his wife Lucy.

The name Deramore is still closely associated with the village – there is the Deramore Arms pub and the Lord Deramore primary school stands almost opposite the hall.

The Charles XII pub in the village is also connected with Heslington Hall since the Charles XII was in fact a brown colt bred by Major Nicholas Yarburgh. The horse’s most famous win was the Doncaster St Leger flat race in 1839 where it finished first in a dead heat with Euclid, but in the deciding heat, Charles XII won ‘by a head’.

During the Second World War, Heslington Hall was headquarters of the RAF’s Four Group of Bomber Command. It was from here that the first bombing raids of the war set off on the night of September 3 1939 and the hall continued to be the nerve-centre of a dozen bombing stations around York. The Hon. Stephen Nicholas de Yarburgh-Bateson (the 5th Lord Deramore) was posted to his own home as Operations Officer.

In a 1964 article, Vernon Noble pointed out the eerie coincidence that although there were no ghosts at Heslington Hall, the motto of the Deramore family was Nocte Volamus (We Fly by Night), and there were bats’ wings on the family coat of arms.

After the war, the Deramores didn’t return to Heslington Hall and the house remained empty for a time.

Accorded Grade II listed building status in 1955, the hall and its land were sold to the Joseph Rowntree Trust in 1956. At one point, there had been plans to turn Heslington Hall and the Estate into a Folk Park. The historian John Bowes Morrell, York University’s original benefactor, had thought of using the grounds of Heslington Hall as a Folk Park or open-air museum of bygone lifestyles. He eventually came to believe that a university would be a better option for the site.

When it was advertised for sale, the interior of the hall had boasted a ground floor, a first floor, second floor and semi-basement with two staircases. the first floor had contained 13 bedrooms and two bathrooms, and in addition there were nine attic bedrooms.

In 1962, Heslington Hall and its estate were acquired for the new University of York, and Sir Bernard Feilden was commissioned to design the conversion of the hall into the university’s administrative headquarters.

Recently, I met Barnaby and Art, two current students at the university, who told me they’d never had occasion to enter Heslington Hall. I also stumbled across a 2023 article in The Tab, an online student newspaper, where three student guides, Jess Rolfe, Sarika Patel and Ellie Simpson, similarly puzzled, guiltily entered the hall to explore what happens there.

Actually, there is no mystery. Caitlin at reception told me that nowadays Heslington Hall contains the office of the vice-chancellor, several meeting rooms, and offices for the university departments of finance, planning and human resources.

David Wilson is a community writer with The Press