Heroes and villains

Eighteen-year-old Thomas Ingilby had his future all mapped out. After finishing school, he was enjoying his gap year and about to join the Army. With no ties or responsibilities, he planned to travel the world. But then destiny intervened.

In 1974, his father died unexpectedly.

In the midst of his grief, Thomas’s world turned upside down. As the only son of the Ingilby family, he knew where his duty lay. He shelved all his plans and returned to his ancestral home, taking up the title of Sir Thomas. “Between 18 and 21 should be the best years of your life, freedom and no responsibilities. But there was no alternative. Someone had to take over the reins,” he says.

As the latest in a long line of Ingilbys to reside at Ripley Castle, near Harrogate, the sixth baronet was determined to continue the proud, unbroken family tradition. And what a tradition. This year, the family is celebrating being at Ripley Castle for exactly 700 years.

It may not be the biggest house in Yorkshire and baronet may not be the grandest title, but 700 years of continuous residence in the same castle is a big deal. To mark the anniversary, as well as holding a series of events this summer – including a medieval re-enactment and open air music concerts and Shakespeare performances, – the family has been unearthing its colourful history with the help of one of their sons, who is studying history at Leeds University.

The Ingilby story, covering 26 generations and going back as far as 1309, when the family first became keepers of the castle, unfolds against a backdrop of royal turmoil, religious persecution, civil war and plagues. There are tales of romance, drama, villainy and heroism and the colourful characters that have emerged include some of the most seditious figures in our nation’s history – potential terrorists in today’s terms.

Given that they were hunted down and, at one point, fined the equivalent of £3m in today’s money for betraying the Crown, it is a wonder the Ingilby clan and its estate survived intact at all.

As one of England’s ten oldest families still in the same residence, they have been at Ripley longer than the Howards have been at Castle Howard.

Sir Thomas’s wife, Lady Emma, says that when someone told her recently that their family was celebrating its 500th anniversary in their residence, she couldn’t help thinking: “Hmmm. New boys.”

It is easy to see why the powerful lure of his ancestral home drew Sir Thomas back. His famous forebears include two of the most dangerous Papists in the North, who hid out in the castle walls, Gunpowder Plot conspirators and a swashbuckling daughter of the family who held Oliver Cromwell hostage at pistol point in the castle library.

As a boy, growing up in the castle, Sir Thomas never realised quite how special it was. “It was normal to me. I had great fun, rowing and canoeing on the lake with my sisters. There was so much space. Our games of hide and seek were fantastic.”

It was after he took over that Sir Thomas, now 52, became more interested in the history. “I wanted to find out more about it and the people who lived here.”

The family is unearthing stories and facts about the Ingilbys all the time, including covered-up tales of illegitimate children. “Some of my ancestors will be spinning in their graves, but there’s no point being dishonest about it – it’s part of our history.”

Since much of the genealogy is written down and archived, they have a wealth of material to work through.

“When you see what the family has been through, it is unbelievable that we survived,” he says.

He would love to go back in time and meet the original Sir Thomas Ingilby, who was knighted in 1355 for saving King Edward III’s life when he killed a wild boar that was about to commit regicide. “As a senior judge on the King’s Bench, he would have had a very interesting life. He was established in the King’s Court. We have gone downhill ever since,” he laughs.

There was one dramatic family rift which saw a father fighting against his rebel sons in the middle of Ripon’s market square. Sir William Ingilby was High Sheriff of York in the mid- 16th Century and loyal to the Crown.

His sons, Francis and David, were militant Catholics. “The family was split straight down the middle,” says Sir Thomas.

Francis, who had been ordained as a priest in Reims and returned home with the intention of stirring rebellion, ended up being hanged, drawn and quartered in York in 1586. “There are remarkable parallels with today: he was someone who had a marginal religious belief, went to another country to train and came back intent on spreading the faith and overthrowing the established religion and government,” says Sir Thomas.

His brother David, known as “The Fox” was a kind of Catholic Scarlet Pimpernel figure. Sir Thomas recently found a list of dos and don’ts for a spy being sent to the royal court in Scotland in a book about the Gunpowder Plot. “The last thing on the list said, ‘beware of David Ingilby’.”

James I may have stayed at Ripley in 1603, but two years later the Ingilbys were plotting to kill him. Nine of the 11 known conspirators of the Gunpowder Plot were close relations or associates of the family.

But again, not all the family opposed the Crown. Sir William Ingilby, a supporter of Charles I, hid in Ripley Castle’s priest hole when Oliver Cromwell came looking for him. It was his sister, Trooper Jane Ingilby – said to have fought with the Royalists at the Battle of Marston Moor, disguised as a man in a full suit of armour – who held Cromwell at pistol point overnight in the castle library to prevent him conducting a search.

Not all the family sagas the Ingilbys have unearthed are historically significant, but they are fascinating nonetheless.

One Ingilby abandoned his wife and two-year-old son to go off and become a monk. Once a man had joined the seminary and given up his possessions he was written of as dead by law. His distraught wife had to hang on in limbo for 12 years in case he changed his mind and returned.

Sir William Amcotts Ingilby, born 1783, was a drinker, gambler and general reprobate, as well as an MP. Famously eccentric, he was renowned for walking about Ripley and Ripon in his dressing gown “without smalls or loincloth on”.

“Most of the Ingilbys were fundamentally good people, even if they found themselves outside the law or monarch at that time. One characteristic we have all inherited is we have proved to be extraordinary survivors,”

says Sir Thomas, who admits that casting his eye back over the annals of history has helped him put today’s economic recession in context.

When he first took on Ripley, Sir Thomas had 17 employees, mostly part-time, and a handful of visitors on bank holiday weekends. Today, the castle is a major weddings and conference venue visited by 70,000 tourists a year. Sir Thomas, who now employs 120 full-time staff, knows the next 12 to 18 months are going to be tough, but he draws strength from his family’s proven ability to weather storms relatively unscathed: “Looking back over 700 years puts things into context – we’ve been in worse scrapes than this.”

He does look forward to retiring one day. “Although we have great fun and really love what we do, we have never wanted to be the parents who stick with a job too long. It needs energy and fresh ideas and I don’t intend to be in the post when I am 80.”

All of his five children – four boys and a girl, aged 14 to 23 – have parttime jobs in the castle gardens or tearooms, if they’re not working on the website or in the hotel. “They all help out when they can and they enjoy it,” says Sir Thomas. “Whatever they do, they are going to have to work for their living.”

His eldest son, Jamie, has a degree in business management. “In a few years’ time, he may be interested in getting more involved. But I would like him to have time to establish himself in a career and get a wider view of the world first.”

Reflecting on his own experiences, Sir Thomas stresses he would never push his children into the family business, which now has a turnover of £3.5m. “I would far rather they had a happy, fulfilled life doing what they really want to do. In the end, it’s only bricks and mortar – people are much more important than buildings.”

But, roll on another 700 years, and I suspect there will still be Ingilbys at Ripley Castle. After all, it’s in the blood...

■ The Ripley Castle Estate, Harrogate, North Yorkshire, HG3 3AY. Tel: 01423-770152; ripleycastle.co.uk

Ripley Special Events 2009

May 25: Classic Car Rally and Family Birdwatch and Falconry Day.

June 4-7: Grand Summer Sale: Huge gift fair on the showfield.

June 16-July 5: The Tempest: Shakespeare’s work brought to life on Ripley’s island, in the middle of the lake..

July 7-8: Comedy of Errors: performed by The Globe Theatre Company in the Castle courtyard.

July 18-19: Wars of the Roses weekend. Medieval re-enactment in the showfield..

July 25: Jools Holland with his Rhythm and Blues Orchestra, outdoor concert..

Aug 2: Classic car rally.

Aug 8: Ripley Show: traditional agricultural and horticultural show.

Aug 31: Plant sale and family birdwatch and falconry day.

Nov 1: Guy Fawkes Run: 10k fun run round Ripley.