Lupset Hall
Wakefield Civic Society has alerted us to a planning application to turn Lupset Hall into residential apartments: https://planning.wakefield.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=QNLOLTQQLH000
Amongst the 41 documents is a Heritage Impact Assessment which provides a history of the Grade ll* listed building. We hope that due consideration will be given to the historical and architectural features. Apart from alterations to the Hall itself, there will be a substantial new build attached to the original building.
In 1699 Lupset was sold to Richard Witton, a lawyer. The Hall seems to have been rebuilt in 1716 for Witton’s son, also Richard, and it is probably in this period that the parkland around the house was laid out. From the middle of the 18th century the house appears to have been let to tenants before being purchased at the end of the century for Daniel Gaskell who made considerable changes. Gaskell would become the first MP for Wakefield.
Matthew Tomlinson, a tenant of Gaskell at nearby Doghouse Farm writes in his diary on 19th April 1807: “Yesterday Mr Gaskell and his family came to reside at Lupset; a long time hath now elapsed since it was inhabited; and may now perhaps become a place of habitation for many generations; nearly a Centry ago R: Witton Esqr I doubt not was busy enough in erecting the edifice, diging the ponds, and planting the groves, but he in his turn went to his forefathers, and if the initials of his name were not engraven upon the memorable marble on the front of the Hall; He wou’d almost have been forgotten of Men: Now my young Landlord, has filled up his ponds, choped down many of his Trees, pulled down all his outbuildings, and bids fair for long life; but before a Centry has rolled over, he, (and also myself) will have passed the ford, and perhaps his children’s children will be improveing upon his plans.”
Lupset was sold in 1927 to Wakefield Corporation and in the 1930s developed as a golf course and clubhouse. Wakefield Council sold it in 2014, and since then it has been a residential property, but the cost of restoration and repairs being significant, it is once again up for sale and redevelopment.