Owston Hall: Plans submitted to build 30 apartments in walled gardens of Grade II-listed Yorkshire country house

The scheme for the one-bedroom serviced flats in the Grade II-listed old kitchen garden of Owston Hall is currently under consideration by Doncaster Council.

Developed in around 1770, the walled garden pre-dates the building of the current hall. In its Victorian heyday, it had hundreds of fruit trees and vines, and oranges and apricots were grown there. There was a heated fruit wall to support exotic varieties, and furnaces that kept the growing areas free of frosts. There was a large glasshouse and orangery. Produce supplied the Davies-Cooke family, the hall’s owners at the time.

They did not live permanently at Owston by the 20th century, though were able to exploit coal reserves found on their estate. By the early 1930s, the parkland was leased to a golf course and the hall was clubhouse. The family sold most of the land after World War Two, during which the house had been requistioned for military use.

In the 1950s and 60s, the kitchen garden became a market garden with produce sold commercially, and the family briefly retired to the hall, and occupied it for the first time since the 1880s.

In 1979, the descendants of the Davies-Cookes finally disposed of the hall, with businessman Peter Edwards turning it into a hotel.

The estate changed hands again in 2022, when the local Martin family bought the hotel and grounds with the intention of developing them into a golf and spa resort.

Permission to build eight detached homes in the walled garden was granted to Mr Edwards in 2017 and renewed in 2020.

However, a masterplan for the development of the estate submitted to Doncaster Council as part of a separate scheme to convert the Grade II-listed stables and coach-house, formerly used as a nursing home and later as additional hotel bedrooms, into 10 apartments provides further information about the plans for the walled garden.

The previous development of detached dwellings has been amended in favour of building 30 retirement flats, which would be offered for rent as self-contained accommodation but with access to the hotel and its facilities. The apartments would also be marketed to guests for golf and spa breaks and wedding parties.

The documents state that the gardens are in a poor state of repair, with only the walls surviving, the greenhouses having been lost. The Martins’ heritage consultant said: “Considerable investment is required to secure the structure of the walls for the future.”

The Martins’ vision for the estate includes extending the hotel, remodelling the dining and entertaining areas, renovating the spa, adding a fine dining restaurant and building a new clubhouse in the grounds to replace the golf facilities in the old gun room.

A major application they submitted to the council last year included alterations to form a bar and dining area, new external terrace and patios, spa extension with new entrance, sunken swimming pool patio, and a three-storey extension with 23 new bedrooms.

All three proposals are awaiting a planning decision.