In March 1863 Sir Tatton Sykes, 4th baronet, died at Sledmere, his seat in Yorkshire. Almost immediately there were calls for a monument to his memory, and a committee was formed to oversee the project and solicit subscriptions. Various sites were considered, and a competition launched to find the perfect design. Early in 1865 a site high on Garton Hill was decided upon, and the chosen architect, John Gibbs, visited Yorkshire to see the location before the foundation stone was laid.
Sykes (1772-1863) was a pioneering farmer, enriching the soil of the wolds with bone manure made to his own formula. His principal passions were horse racing and fox hunting and he was known as a great host, but also as something of an eccentric. He lived a spartan lifestyle, and expected his wife and children to do the same; he drove his own sheep to market (and as a talented boxer he could fight off any rowdies along the way) and as shown below he continued to wear the costume of an earlier generation throughout his life.
The Illustrated London News began its obituary of Sir Tatton with the story that a Yorkshireman was once asked what was worth seeing in his county. His response was ‘York Minster, Fountains Abbey and Sir Tatton’. Thousands are said to have attended his funeral at Sledmere in 1763.
The competition to design the monument attracted over 150 entries of ‘obelisks, columns, and towers in great variety of style and ornamentation’. The designs were all displayed in a Driffield school-room for two weeks, during which time the committee deliberated and ‘gratified spectators’ called in to peruse the works.
The favoured entry was by John Gibbs (1826-?), an Oxford born architect who had been lauded for his design for the famous Banbury Cross, erected in 1859 to mark the marriage of the Princess Royal, Queen Victoria’s eldest daughter.
The committee was particularly impressed that Gibbs had included a carving of Sykes in his natural habitat – the hunting field. The finished design was featured in The Builder magazine in April 1865, and reached a wider general audience in the pages of the Illustrated London News. As Barbara Jones wrote in Follies and Grottoes (1953) it is ‘so encrusted with detail that description is impossible’, so the editors of both of the contemporary magazines must have been delighted to be sent an illustration.
The foundation stone was laid by Lord Hotham in May 1865, using a ceremonial trowel made for the occasion by a Hull silversmith. The contractors were Messrs Simpson and Malone of Hull, and the ‘celebrated sculptor’ William Forsyth (1833-1915) of Worcester was commissioned to model the figures. Despite gales which threatened to blow down the scaffolding, the final stone was placed on 1 December 1865, although setbacks with the sculpture delayed the inauguration ceremony until November 1866.
The principal inscription remembers that the local populace ‘loved [Sykes] as a friend and honoured him as a landlord’.
The chosen site stood on top of ancient entrenchments, and as work came to a close in 1866 the workmen levelling the ground discovered a number of skeletons. A ‘zealous architect’ by the name of Mortimer hurried to the scene to record the find, and eventually found more than forty graves.
John Gibbs continued to work as an architect and published a number of books on the subject, as well as a novel. In the early 1870s he moved to Leamington Spa and his known history seems to come to a strange end in 1880. In that year the ‘travelling architect’ was in court in Warwick on a charge of entering a property without ‘reasonable excuse’. According to the press reports he was trying to escape a man to whom he owed money, but the newspapers featured two conflicting conclusions: one stated that he was fined 3 shillings, and the other that he was acquitted. Whatever the truth of the matter, after a distinguished career Gibbs seems to disappear without trace.
The monument (grade II) was was damaged by a gale in 1982 but was quickly restored. It stands alongside the B1252 between Garton on the Wolds and Sledmere, and the exterior can be viewed at anytime. The interior can be viewed by prior arrangement with the Sledmere estate office.
Sledmere village and the grounds of Sledmere House are home to a range of wonderful ornaments built in the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. For more on the house, gardens and park click here.
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