Written by Ian Curteis FSA, this 34-page history of the house and room-by-room guide is lavishly illustrated with period engravings, sketches and modern photographs. Designed and printed by local company Rebus Design.

Written by Janet Senior, this is a comprehensive 98-page history of the remarkable family who built Markenfield in 1310 and who lived there for 250 years until disaster overtook them. Full of moving human stories and illustrated with family trees. Published by Black Swan Books. ISBN 978-1-903564-26-4

The text of a talk given in December 2007 concerning the historical link between Fountains Abbey and Markenfield Hall 1132 to 1539. This talk, which I have entitled Piety and Partridges - for reasons which I hope will become clear during the next twenty minutes or so - is about the relationship between the owners of the Markenfield estate and the monks of Fountains Abbey from the mid 12th century to November, 1539 when that house was dissolved. It is based on information to be found in the few remnants that survive from the Markenfield papers, and the more plentiful, but still fragmentary, abbey records, the earliest of which are the monastic charters recording donations of land and other resources to the house during the first two centuries of its existence...

Although the Markenfields had a beautiful domestic Chapel in the heart of the house – which is still very active, and to which all are welcome – at an early stage they established their own chantry chapel dedicated to St Andrew on the East side of the North transept of Ripon Cathedral, where two mediaeval monuments to two notable members of the family remain: both Sir Thomas Markenfields, one (d. 1398) the great-great-grandfather of the other (d.1497). They are all that is left of what must have been, before the reformation, a very fine place of worship and family. mausoleum. Mass would have been said here daily for the souls of the family departed, by the resident chantry priest. It is probable that this was the same priest who also said Mass daily in the Chapel at Markenfield itself and that he commuted between his two Chapels every day. Those familiar with Yorkshire weather and muddy tracks will know this would not always have been a pleasure...

The Parish of Markenfield Hall is a most unusual parish, partly on account of its unique 14th century moated hall and also because, over the centuries, the parish has remained small, its boundaries almost identical with those of the estate. Unlike surrounding parishes, no hamlet or village has grown up around the hall. Through the ages the name has changed from Merchefeld to Markenfield with the main variants being Merchingfeld, Merkingfeld, Markynfeld, Merkyngefelde, Markinfeild and Markingefeild. In addition, it has been a manor, parke, mannor, hall and today it is the Parish of Markenfield Hall. The parish has at present only five registered adult residents, in a total of five dwellings with a potential of perhaps ten voters. Needless to say it does not have the population for a Parish Council but does have Parish Meetings twice a year. It might have been so different had the Reformation not dissolved the adjoining Fountains Abbey or had the nearby mediaeval village of Aismunderby not been deserted, possibly due to the plague...

"Six years ago, the then Chairman of the Friends of Markenfield, asked if someone would do a write-up of the Grantley window. Both Bill Forster and Diana Balmforth, had already written about it, in their booklets about the Cathedral windows. – I said, if it was to be done again, it should be done in depth. I didn’t realise, what I was letting myself in for..." Dr Brian Crosse. Many of the Markenfields were buried in the north transept of Ripon Minster. Members of the Norton family, have been buried in many places around Ripon, and family members are commemorated at five places in the Cathedral. In the north aisle, the second window from the east (near the pulpit) is a fine heraldic window. This dates from 1840, and was commissioned by another Fletcher Norton, the third Lord Grantley of Markenfield. The window’s artist was Thomas Willement, who was heraldic artist to George IV, and artist in stained glass to Queen Victoria. His monogram, TW, can be seen in the bottom right-hand corner of the window. Almost uniquely within the Cathedral, this window has no religious content. Instead, it is ‘a celebration of dynastic splendour’. Such windows were quite the norm in the 18th century, when almost all the windows here, were heraldic. Willement was also responsible, for some of the heraldic glass, displayed in the east window of the Cathedral Library...

Wordsworth wrote “The White Doe of Rylstone” as a long lament for the fate of the Nortons, a proud Yorkshire family ruined by involvement in the Catholic ‘Rising of the North’ of 1569. The poem is seldom read today, perhaps because of its excessive length and its verse reminiscent of the Christmas cracker: “The monumental power of age Was with this goodly personage; A stature undepressed in size Unbent, which rather seemed to rise…” Old Sir Richard, a devout Catholic, was one of the leaders of The Rising; when the muster took place in the courtyard at Markenfield, it was he who carried the Banner of the Five Wounds of Christ. The troops rode out to total defeat. Imprisonment and execution followed. Sir Richard was attainted as a traitor, his son Christopher and his brother Thomas died on the scaffold, and the family, evicted from their home, Norton Conyers, were left in penury. The property had been confiscated by the Crown, and Elizabeth Markenfield, the last of the family, is recorded as dying a pauper. The family motto expresses, in Latin, the Nortons’ pride in their ancient lineage: AVI NUMERATUR AVORUM I come from a long line of ancestors At least fifteen of the 3rd Lord Grantley’s direct lineal ancestors have the distinction of being included in the Dictionary of National Biography (and that is not counting Royal ancestors). Discover the Lords - from one to eight...

"SURELY one of the most romantic houses left in England! This is the thought that first strikes the mind of the pilgrim who is fortunate enough to discover Markenfield Hall. And if as he gazes upon this grey pile of buildings already “an ancient house” in the days of Elizabeth he is able to recall the stirring story of its past, he is thrilled yet more with the sense of its romance. This splendid old pile, built in purest fourteenth-century Gothic of the time of the Third Edward, enlarged by its lords in the two following centuries, but happily untouched since then, stands as a monument of heroic deeds and knightly prowess. From its stately gateway mail-clad warriors passed forth to fight at Agincourt and Flodden, and in less happy days it was here that faithful hearts planned the desperate attempt to rise in arms for “God, Our Lady and the Catholic Faith,” against the persecuting violence of heretical power. The great court-yard, now so peaceful and deserted, was once filled with armed men, each with a crucifix hanging on his breast, and a red cross upon his arm, grouped beneath the banner of the Five Wounds of Christ..." Written by Dom Bede Camm in 1910 as part of his book Forgotten Shrines, this work recounts the Rising of the North and the downfall of the once-great Markenfield family.

Sir Thomas Markenfield, who was born around 1447 and died in 1497, is celebrated for his attachment to Richard III. What might have once been considered universally as a mark of shame, is now seen by many as a badge of honour. In particular it is believed that he fought valiantly for his lord and king on Bosworth Field. But what was the nature of that attachment? How did Sir Thomas first come into the king’s service? What service did he give? And how did he adjust to life after Richard III...?

This autobiographical account of the early life and times of the Honourable Richard Henry Brinsley Norton, who became 6th Baron Grantley of Markenfield, is both hilarious and outrageous. By his own admission he was “brought up on a silver spoon”. The book chronicles the twilight of the aristocracy, refers to Hitler in the present tense and peppered with inaccuracies (including his assertion that a Norton ancestor was the lover of Mary Queen of Scots – well, I suppose you never know…). Join 6th Lord Grantley on a rip roaring ride around the early C19th.

Members of The Friends of Markenfield’s Archive & Research Group, Alan Robiette and Eleanor Hart spent a number of months researching a letter written to Sir Thomas Markenfield (V) during his exile in the Low Countries. Few personal documents remain pertaining to Thomas, which makes this one – housed in the Harleian Manuscripts at the British Library – all the more special. Bearing a message from Markenfield – “your is poor but prayeth hard for you” – the letter is not all that it first seems.