Keld Head House in Pickering

We’re currently working on a Heritage Impact Assessment for Keld Head House in Pickering. This vernacular, seventeenth-century long house went through a period of aggrandisement in the Arts and Crafts period with reclaimed, eighteenth century panelling being fitted in the central chamber and a faux Jacobean stair formed. The house has links to the Pipers, a well-known, and very affluent, local waling family. We have been lucky to obtain lots of oral history relating to the building from the Richardson brothers who were regular visitors to the house and whose collection can be seen at the Ryedale Folk Museum. This includes Jacobean clothing salvaged from the house. They recall two four poster beds in the house that were made form narwhal tusks! The Pipers were related by marriage to the Cooper/Loys from Aislaby Hall, one of whom was an architectural salvage merchant and this possibly explains the provenance of the panelling. It’s been a very interesting week of research!