Allen Banks and Staward Gorge

One of the things not to miss on your visit

© National Trust

Although Allen Banks was largely the creation of Susan Davidson, there is a bit more to it than that.

By 1567 the Ridley family of Willimoteswick Castle, owned the original Hall, the manor house of the district. After a fire in the hall in the middle of the 18th century it was rebuilt and passed into the possession of the Lowes family of Allensgreen nearby.

In 1812 three members of the Lowes family died, leaving Ridley Hall to daughter, Mary Ann Lowes. In 1818 she sold the estate to Thomas Bates of Halton Castle for £12,000. He greatly improved it and sold it for £16,300 to the Revered N.J. Hollingsworth, who lived at the hall until 1830 when the two men had a final quarrel.

Not long after, Mr John Davidson of Otterburn, bought the estate for his wife, Susan Hussey Elizabeth Jessup, granddaughter of the 9th Earl of Strathmore – starting an infamous Bowes-Lyon family connection.

Susan was the first lady of Ridley known to take an interest in the gardens. She laid out 65 flower beds in the formal gardens and organised the system of paths, rustic bridges and summerhouses, not to mention the work in the woods by the River Allen.

After John died, Susan managed and developed the estate for the next thirty-five years. Susan Davidson died childless and left the property to her cousin John Bowes, the illegitimate son of the 10th Earl of Strathmore.

In 1891 the house was rebuilt in its present form and in 1942 Francis Bowes Lyon gave Allen Banks to the National Trust.