Lost Heritage

Location		Haggerston
Year demolished		1931
Reason		Insufficient wealth, now a caravan park
See all images:		Gallery
<< Back to the main list

Haggerston Castle began as a medieval fortified manor house held by the de Hagardestoun (Haggerston) family, who were established in Northumberland by the 12th century. The earliest record of the castle dates to 1311, when King Edward II visited the site, indicating its status even at that early date. In 1345 the manor’s owner, Robert de Haggerston, obtained a royal licence from Edward III to crenellate his residence; contemporary accounts describe the result as a “strong, square tower,” essentially a defensible tower house. This medieval tower remained the core of Haggerston Castle for centuries under the Haggerston family, who were prominent Northumbrian gentry (a baronetcy was conferred on Sir Thomas Haggerston in 1642). A disastrous fire in 1618 badly damaged the castle, after which the old tower was evidently left in a semi-ruinous state. An illustration from circa 1772 indeed shows the medieval tower as a roofless ruin, signaling the end of the castle’s first era.

Georgian rebuilding and estate changes (1777–1850s)

In the late 18th century the focus shifted from fortress to country house. Sir Thomas Haggerston, 4th Baronet, initiated the construction of a new mansion around 1777, presumably incorporating or built adjacent to the old tower’s remains. The crumbling medieval tower was finally pulled down in 1805 to make way for the expanding house; on its foundations a new wing was added to the Georgian mansion. Under Sir Carnaby Haggerston in the early 19th century, the architect-builder Luke Moody undertook significant extensions between 1808 and 1811, adding three-storey side wings and extensive offices and service quarters to create a much enlarged residence. By this period, Haggerston Castle was a substantial country house rather than a castle in the medieval sense, though the estate retained the romantic name.

The Haggerston family’s long ownership of the estate came to an end mid-century. Sir Carnaby’s only daughter Mary inherited the property and in 1805 married Sir Thomas Massey-Stanley of Hooton Hall, Cheshire. Ultimately, heavy debts forced the sale of Haggerston. In 1858 the entire estate was purchased by John Naylor, a wealthy banker from Liverpool, for the enormous sum of £340,000. (This price – equivalent to roughly £27 million in today’s money – reflects the estate’s great value, including its 1,700+ acres and a sizable mansion.) The sale ended nearly seven centuries of Haggerston family tenure and ushered in a new phase of improvements under its ambitious new owners.

Victorian transformations under the Naylor-Leyland family (1858–1911)

John Naylor’s acquisition initiated a lavish Victorian transformation of Haggerston Castle. Naylor’s nephew, Christopher John Naylor, inherited the property in 1891 and, in accordance with his inheritance, adopted the surname Leyland. C. J. Leyland was a former Royal Navy officer and an enthusiastic horticulturalist and modernizer. He left his family’s Welsh estate to his brother and moved permanently to Haggerston, determined to make it one of the great country seats of the era. By 1893 Leyland had commissioned the renowned architect Richard Norman Shaw to substantially rebuild and enlarge the house. Under Shaw’s direction (1893–1897), Haggerston Castle was partly transformed into a sprawling late-Victorian mansion with eclectic architectural features. Notably, Shaw added a very tall, slender water tower (an L-plan turret) that served both as a decorative belvedere and a functional water tank for the house. He also designed a single-storey rotunda – a circular pavilion in a bold Baroque Revival style, with pedimented doorways, giant pilasters and a domed, coffered ceiling – which was attached to the main house as an opulent new reception room. These additions, executed in finely dressed ashlar stone, gave the house a distinctive silhouette and a mix of stylistic elements (the tower evoking a Gothic folly or castle turret, and the rotunda embodying classical grandeur).

Leyland’s improvements extended to the entire estate. The grounds were embellished with exotic and technical marvels: he built an observatory and a heated palm house, laid out walled gardens and Italianate pleasure grounds, and even stocked a private menagerie of exotic animals in the park. An avid dendrologist, Leyland also planted and propagated new hybrid conifers – most famously the Leyland cypress, a fast-growing tree which originated from an accidental cross at his family’s Leighton Hall and was planted and nurtured at Haggerston in the late 1880s. (The Leylandii hybrid was later named in his honor and became one of the most widely planted (and hated!) ornamental hedging trees in Britain.) In 1908, a grand new stable block was erected for the estate’s horses and carriages, a quadrangular courtyard complex of two stories complete with rusticated stonework, a pedimented carriage arch and an elegant clock tower cupola rising above its hipped slate roofs. By the early 20th century, Haggerston Castle had grown into a veritable Victorian-Edwardian palace of 154 rooms, replete with fine interiors (some fitted with carved Adam fireplaces and other period fittings retained from earlier generations).

Despite its splendor, this era of prosperity was short-lived. In April 1911, a catastrophic fire broke out in the main house – local lore would later attribute it to the lingering "witch’s curse" on Haggerston – and the conflagration destroyed the central portion of the mansion. While the distinctive Shaw-designed tower and rotunda survived the blaze, the house’s historic core was left a charred shell. Sir Christopher Leyland, then in his 60s, was devastated by the loss. Although plans were made to rebuild, Leyland himself never again took up residence in the big house after 1911.

Final rebuilding, decline and demolition (1912–1933)

After the 1911 fire, efforts were made to restore or rebuild parts of Haggerston Castle, though on a more limited scale. Architect James Bow Dunn was engaged to redesign the damaged sections – he rebuilt the south and west elevations in a plainer style – and by 1913 a partially reconstructed house once again stood on the site. During the First World War this large house (never fully reoccupied as a private home) was requisitioned for use as a military convalescent hospital, accommodating wounded servicemen. Sir Christopher Leyland, meanwhile, relocated to a modest dower house on the estate. He died in 1926, bringing an end to the Leyland family’s tenure at Haggerston.

The upkeep of Haggerston Castle proved unsustainable in the straitened interwar economy. Christopher’s heirs first tried to sell the property in its entirety: in May 1930 the 1750-acre estate – including the mansion, its fixtures, and even an entire neighboring village – was offered at auction. The mansion at that time was described in sale catalogs as a 150-room Italianate country house, filled with fine architectural fittings and modern amenities. However, the auction failed to find a buyer, likely due to the onset of the Great Depression (and, as local legend had it, whispers about the house being haunted or cursed). Consequently, the estate was broken up. In 1931–32 the grand house was effectively liquidated: a second auction sold off over 3,500 lots of its contents, fixtures and even structural elements (from oak staircases and marble chimney-pieces down to kitchen crockery and gardening tools).

Once salvageable parts were stripped, the skeletal remains of Haggerston Castle’s mansion were razed. By 1933, virtually the entire house had been demolished, ending a building history spanning five centuries. The only portions left standing were those built of especially robust masonry – notably Norman Shaw’s water tower and rotunda (c.1893), which were left isolated in the landscape after the rest of the house was torn down. (The 1908 stable block, a short distance away, also survived intact, spared from demolition due to its continued utility.) These surviving structures, with their weathered ashlar and distinctive profiles, were later recognized as important heritage assets and are now protected as Grade II listed buildings.

Afterlife as a holiday park (1930s–present)

Following the mansion’s demise, the once-patrician estate took on a new life geared toward leisure and tourism. In 1933 the remaining property – now devoid of its manor house – was sold off in parcels. Over the subsequent decades, the parkland at Haggerston was repurposed for recreation, and by the mid-20th century it became established as a caravan and holiday camp. Today the grounds are operated as Haggerston Castle Holiday Park, a popular holiday caravan park currently owned by Haven Holidays. Amid acres of modern mobile-home pitches and amenities, the old castle’s vestiges serve unusual new roles. The ivy-clad Edwardian water tower now stands as a landmark in the center of the park – it has been used in recent times as a maintenance storeroom – while the once-elegant rotunda has found a second life as an entertainment lounge for guests. The cellars of the demolished mansion were ingeniously converted into a tavern and storage rooms as part of the resort (though the subterranean bar has since closed due to safety regulations).

The Victorian water tower at Haggerston Castle (left) and part of the rotunda (right, behind white canopy) still stand today amid the holiday park facilities. These two structures – designed by R. Norman Shaw in the 1890s – are the last architectural witnesses of the grand house, featuring the same pale ashlar and robust classical detailing noted in 19th-century descriptions. The rotunda’s interior, once a splendid domed hall, remains intact with its rusticated stone walls and coffered dome, now serving as a leisure venue rather than a gentleman’s salon. Nearby, the estate’s stable courtyard of 1908 also survives, its arched carriage bays and central clock turret fully preserved; this too is a listed structure, though it now quietly overlooks holiday lodges instead of thoroughbred horses. Scattered around the park are a few other relics of the old estate – for example, the roofless shell of the medieval chapel and an 18th-century dovecote can be found among the trees.