As they prepare their home for this year's open days, playwright Ian Curteis and his wife Lady Deirdre tell Chris Brayshay what it's like to live at historic Markenfield Hall

LIVING far from the madding crowd suits Ian Curteis and his wife, Lady Deirdre. Their home, Markenfield Hall, described as the most unspoilt surviving 14 Century country house in England, is to be found at the end of a mile long farm track in North Yorkshire. The couple have resisted calls to replace the rough route with a metalled drive, or the unapologetically plain and simple lane-end signpost with modern road signs.

“You come up this lonely farm track and are confronted suddenly in the middle of nowhere with this amazing house,’’ says television dramatist and former television director Ian. “Living so beautifully isolated I think is right. We could put up great big signs: ‘Here we are!’, but we want to keep this unique peaceful and quiet atmosphere.’’

Both he and his wife, who started on the restoration of the hall with her first husband in the 1980s, want to share their passion for Markenfield and its history, but there are limits to visitor numbers. The moated hall, on the edge of Ripon, is open to the public for a set 32 days a year. Occasional visiting days – “Mop up Mondays” - have been introduced in the face of demand and there are also tours by appointment.

The photogenic house can be hired for weddings. This year there will be six, but there are rules. “No more than 34 people, no marquees and it is all over by 6pm," says Ian. "That means three quarters of the people who get in touch with us don’t want to know.’’

The couple politely, but repeatedly, resist unsolicited invitations from firms and freelancing consultants to help market the hall, “for a small fee’’. Ian tells callers: “We don’t want to be more successful, thank you.’’ “I think we have got it right for the house. It has to retain some privacy in the sense that it is a private house and also because of my job. When I write, I need to be undisturbed," he says.

“I think it is very important that we keep what we have on a small scale, but welcome everyone who wants to come to see the house," adds Lady Deirdre. "It is part of our history, local history too. Living at Markenfield is a privilege.’’

Playwright Ian has more than 100 credits on both sides of the Atlantic for TV, radio and stage plays; usually political dramas (and most famously for The Onedin Line). The 79-year-old is being flown to New York at the end of this month (APRIL) for the opening of his latest stage play – ‘Lafayette’ – the story of the French hero of the American Revolution. He is also working on two more plays; reworking for radio one of his stage successes, The Bargain, based on a meeting between Robert Maxwell and Mother Teresa, and another on the trial of Diana Mosley, wife of British fascist leader Oswald.

He and his wife are totally committed to the continuing restoration of Markenfield. Money from ticket sales to visit the house, talks and musical evening go into this lifetime project. All the speakers, who this year include "Agincourt" authoress Juliet Barker, give their services freely, but are generously given weekend board and lodging – and presents at Christmas. “Every effort goes into the restoration,’’ says Ian. “All our speakers offer their services for free.’’

Following the award-winning restoration of the Great Hall and its fireplace, Ian and Lady Deirdre have now got their sights set on the third and final phase of restoration – redefining the boundary. “The house sits in the middle of a 128 acre deer park, which is medieval,’’ says Ian. “We want to work on that boundary and try to put all cables underground; the setting for the jewel - the house - in the middle.

“That work should be completed in 2030, by which time both of us will be 95 years old. Time to open a bottle and have a celebratory drink!

“I get up in the morning and I can’t believe I am here. I go downstairs in the winter, autumn or spring, put on the kitchen light which spills out over the moat and the two black swans give me a hoot as if they have been on guard all night. I think of them as the Wakemen (watchmen) of Ripon. It is tremendous every day wrestling between earning my living with my pen and looking after the restoration of Markenfield. Both are full time.’’

He gets out of bed at 6.30am and works until he “collapses” around 7pm. Ian has prized collections of the works of Anthony Trollope, Thomas Hardy, William Thackeray, Jane Austen in his dressing room, but never finds the time to pore over their pages. He also keeps meaning to re-catalogue his extensive library of travel books and tomes on the history of art. “I just hope the Almighty tells me: ‘We have a rule you can’t bring anything with you – but I will make an exception in your case. You can bring your library and read your books’.”

He and Lady Deidre, the widow of war hero, the seventh Lord Grantley, were married in the hall’s chapel in 2001, the first recorded chapel wedding here since November 1487 when Christopher Conyers married Anne Markenfield. The bride’s brother was Knight of the Body to Richard 111. “He must have been right by Richard’s side when was killed,’’ says Mr Curteis.

Tragedy was to return to Markenfield two generations later when the Markenfields were caught up in the Pilgrimage of Grace revolt against Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries and religious reforms. Lawyer Robert Aske, who led the 1536 Richmondshire revolt was Sir Thomas Markenfield’s brother-in-law and a visitor to the house. Aske’s actions led him to being hung in chains at Clifford’s Tower in York, as a traitor, but not before the rebellion, which initially started in Lincolnshire, spread through Richmond and Ripon to County Durham.

Barnard Castle and York were surrendered to the rebels , who mustered in Darlington and Spennymoor, causing the then Bishop of Durham to flee for his life from his palace at Bishop Auckland. By the time they reached Doncaster, Aske had 30,000 armed supporters, who dispersed to their homes when offered false promises by an anxious, outnumbered king, playing for time.

While that Sir Thomas survived Henry’s retribution, another Sir Thomas, a generation later, at the time of Queen Elizabeth, was not so lucky. Both he and his uncle, Sir Richard Norton, were pivotal figures in the 1569 Rising of the North against Elizabeth 1, but for the restoration of freedom of worship. Sir Richard, the Rising's standard-bearer, was shot and fatally wounded in a skirmish as he was being arrested, while Thomas literally starved to death in exile in Belgium after resorting to begging.

Markenfield was sacked on the orders of a vengeful Elizabeth, the family evicted and the house and land confiscated for High Treason.

The house was downgraded to a tenanted farm with an absentee landlord, eventually rescued by a direct family descendant in the 18th Century when Markenfield, which had been allowed to go to rack and ruin, was at least made watertight and restoration work begun.

A requiem mass is said in the hall's restored chapel every August for the souls of the last four members of the Markenfield family who lived at the hall at the time of the Rising and died in tragic circumstances.

* Open Days 2015: May 2 -17; June 13-28, 2pm to 5pm.

Markenfield Hall, Ripon, North Yorkshire HG4 3AD. T: 01765-692303