The grounds

Scargill House is situated on a 90-acre estate featuring formal gardens, meadow, woodland and high limestone terracing. You are more than welcome to walk around it; you’ll need an hour or so, and you’ll be sure of breathtaking views.

You might particularly enjoy our walled garden, which is being lovingly restored by community members and volunteers. We have other gardens around the Three Peaks wing and outside the main house.

Beyond our entrance gates lies a line of fields, and beyond that is the River Wharfe, with its stony ‘beaches’ and pretty bridges in the village of Kettlewell (about a mile away and an easy walk).

See the stars

Our rural location means we have less light pollution, and so the stars are spectacular on clear nights.

Ancient woodland

Our estate includes 25 acres officially classified as ancient woodland, which means that land has been wooded continuously since at least 1600. Many of the trees are ash, but you’ll also find beech, larch, hawthorn, hazel and the occasional oak and sycamore. This is sensitively and carefully managed by our estate team and woodland working parties, who work to improve biodiversity and to enable species to thrive that were once rare on the estate, such as the Brown Argus butterfly.

Red Admiral, Peacock, Comma and Small Tortoiseshell butterflies can also be seen here. Flowers to be found in the woodland include Wood Avens, Agrimony, Devil’s-Bit Scabious and Common Enchanter’s Nightshade.

Hay meadow

We manage a small area of hay meadow, which is a great example of Upper Wharfedale grassland in its natural state. Yarrow, Field Scabious, Silverweed, Restharrow, Meadow Vetchling, Eyebright and Yellow Rattle are amongst the flowers that grow there.

See wildlife & other animals

Aside from the wildflowers and trees around the estate, you may enjoy other wildlife—some of which seems to grow increasingly tame! Just outside our Sun Lounge, we’ve created a wild-bird feeding station where, besides the more commonplace robin and sparrow, you’ll see siskins, goldfinches, nuthatches and woodpeckers. Eating the crumbs from under their table are usually several plump pheasants (don’t tempt us) and, of course, there are the inevitable .

You may also spot domestic cats which wander the grounds, and rabbits and moles are abundant all over the estate, accompanied by the occasional sheep that wanders in from the fifteen acres of pasture that we let to our neighbouring farmer. We also love our bats, with pipistrelles and long-eared bats making a home here with us.

Enjoy the playground

If you’re 12 or under, feel free to make the most of our . It’s equipped with swings, slides and other fun equipment.

See how the land lies

Kettlewell is the main village in Upper Wharfedale and most views are dominated by Great Whernside,  at an elevation of 2,310ft, part of the Great Scar Limestone of the Craven Pennines. Large white outcroppings of limestone form spectacular features such as Kilnsey Crag. The landscape is overlaid with impossibly green fields, dotted with sheep, bordered by classic dry-stone walls and stiles and scattered with ancient stone laithes (barns). Gorgeous hamlets and villages lie in the valley bottom, through which runs the River Wharfe.