This tower was built in 1746 by John Yorke, MP for Richmond, and named to mark the final establishment of Hanoverian rule after the defeat of the Jacobites in the same year. It stands in the park of his long-demolished house, at the edge of a steep slope above the River Swale, on the site of an old pele tower. It was probably designed by Daniel Garrett, also architect of The Banqueting House.

Inside are to be found, one above the other, two tall octagonal rooms, flooded with daylight and of the highest quality. The carving and plaster work of the lower is in a Gothic style, while that of the upper is Classical. Here you will sleep under what must be our grandest bedroom ceiling, worth all the 66 steps you must climb to reach it.

Neglect and vandals had done a great deal of damage by the time we bought the tower, but old photographs and salvaged fragments made restoration possible. It is difficult to imagine, certainly to find, a more romantic situation, looking over the trees of this park with the sight and sound of the Swale hurrying over its rocks and stones below; and with the particularly handsome town of Richmond, which has an eighteenth-century theatre and much more besides, a few hundred yards away.

Sleeps: 4