Bramham Park

Bramham Park is a Grade I listed 18th century country house in Bramham, between Leeds and Wetherby, in West Yorkshire, England.

The house, constructed of magnesian limestone ashlar with stone slate roofs, in a classical style is built to a linear plan with a main range linked by colonnades to flanking pavilions. The main block is of three storeys with a raised forecourt. The house is surrounded by a 200 ha (500 acre) landscaped park ornamented by a series of follies and avenues laid out in the 18th century landscape tradition accompanied by 500 ha (1235 acres) of arable farmland.

The Baroque mansion was built in 1698 for Robert Benson, 1st Baron Bingley. It has remained in the ownership of Benson's descendants since its completion in 1710. He died with no male heirs and the barony was extinguished. The estate passed into the hands of his son-in-Law George Fox-Lane (c.1697–1773), who was given the re-created title of Baron Bingley in 1763. His son and heir, the Honourable Robert Fox-Lane, Member of Parliament for York, predeceased him in 1768 and the barony consequently became extinct a second time on his own death in 1773. The estate was inherited for life by his illegitimate daughter Mary, who had married Sir John Goodricke of Ribston Hall and died in 1792. It then passed to the first Baron's nephew, James Fox-Lane, who considerably improved the estate.

From him the estate went to his son George Lane-Fox, known as "The Gambler", who was the MP for Beverley. Following a serious fire in 1828 he was obliged to move to nearby Bowcliffe Hall. The Bramham Park house was then left empty and derelict for 80 years until restored for his grandson George Lane-Fox under the supervision of the architect Detmar Blow in about 1908. George became 1st Baron Bingley of the third creation when the title was recreated in 1933, but had four daughters and no sons meaning that the barony was extinguished for the third time upon his death. The house was inherited by his eldest daughter Marcia, whose husband Joe Ward-Jackson adopted the Lane-Fox surname. Their son George Lane Fox (1931-2012), after 20 years in the Household Cavalry, moved into the Hall and put the estate on an up-to-date financial footing, founding the annual Bramham Horse Trials in 1974.

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