Walton Hall is a stately home

Stately home

A stately home is a "great country house". It is thus a palatial great house or in some cases an updated castle, located in the British Isles, mostly built between the mid-16th century and the early part of the 20th century, as well as converted abbeys and other church property...

 in the county

County

A county is a jurisdiction of local government in certain modern nations. Historically in mainland Europe, the original French term, comté, and its equivalents in other languages denoted a jurisdiction under the sovereignty of a count A county is a jurisdiction of local government in certain...

 of West Yorkshire

West Yorkshire

West Yorkshire is a metropolitan county within the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England with a population of 2.2 million. West Yorkshire came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972....

, England, near Wakefield

Wakefield

Wakefield is the main settlement and administrative centre of the City of Wakefield, a metropolitan district of West Yorkshire, England. Located by the River Calder on the eastern edge of the Pennines, the urban area is and had a population of 76,886 in 2001....

. It was built in the Palladian style around 1767 on an island within a 26 acre (105,000 m²) lake, on the site of a former moated medieval hall. It was the ancestral home of the naturalist

Natural history

Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...

 and traveller Charles Waterton

Charles Waterton

Charles Waterton was an English naturalist and explorer.-Heritage and Life:"Squire" Waterton was born at Walton Hall, Wakefield, Yorkshire to Thomas Waterton and Anne Bedingfield. He was of a Roman Catholic landed gentry family descended from Reiner de Waterton...

, who made Walton Hall into the world's first wildfowl and nature reserve

Nature reserve

A nature reserve is a protected area of importance for wildlife, flora, fauna or features of geological or other special interest, which is reserved and managed for conservation and to provide special opportunities for study or research...

. Waterton's son, Edmund

Edmund Waterton

Edmund Waterton, Knight of the Supreme Order of Christ; Knight of Malta; Papal Privy Chamberlain; Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries was a British antiquary. Born at Walton Hall, West Yorkshire, the only child of Charles Waterton, he was a lifelong Catholic and was educated at Stonyhurst...

, sold the estate.

The Waterton Collection is now in Wakefield Museum.

Walton Hall is now part of the Waterton Park Hotel. In the 1940s and again in the late 1950s and early 1960s the Hall was a maternity home.

Walton Hall with his residence at Cawthorne

Cawthorne

Cawthorne is a village and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley in South Yorkshire, England. The village was once the centre of a localised iron and coal mining industry, though today it is the centre of a very affluent commuter belt, west of Barnsley...

, was home to the Old English Chieftein Ailric the ancestor of Charles Waterton, who is mentioned in the Domesday Book

Domesday Book

Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...

 and was the Kings Thane for South Yorkshire

South Yorkshire

South Yorkshire is a metropolitan county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It has a population of 1.29 million. It consists of four metropolitan boroughs: Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham, and City of Sheffield...

. The day the Normans first came to Yorkshire, Ailric was at Walton Hall and was alerted by a man on horseback that they were coming in force. He hastily amassed his retainers and they on horseback they ambushed the mounted Norman knights of Ilbert de Laci, who were moving on the road from Tanshelf to Wakefield. The better armoured and armed knights of Ilbert de Laci were able to drive off this attack. For 2–3 years Ailric was able to maintain a guerrilla war

Guerrilla warfare

Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare and refers to conflicts in which a small group of combatants including, but not limited to, armed civilians use military tactics, such as ambushes, sabotage, raids, the element of surprise, and extraordinary mobility to harass a larger and...

 out of his estates in the west of South Yorkshire, until Ilbert was forced to come to an accommodation with him whereby Ailric would communicate with the local people and Ilbert would grant him back, many of his former estates, including Walton Hall.

The descendant of this family, Sara le Neville née De Burgh married Thomas De Burgh, the Steward of the Countess of Brittany, Duchess of Richmond. Walton Hall was one of six manors, including the manors at Silkstone

Silkstone

Silkstone is a village and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley in South Yorkshire, England. It is situated in the foothills of the Pennines, between the towns of Barnsley and Penistone, and includes the village of Silkstone Common...

 and Cawthorne and the De Burgh manors in North Yorkshire

North Yorkshire

North Yorkshire is a non-metropolitan or shire county located in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England, and a ceremonial county primarily in that region but partly in North East England. Created in 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972 it covers an area of , making it the largest...

, that she lived at through the year.

The Waterton family acquired Walton Hall with the marriage in 1435 of Constance Asshenhull, the heiress of the De Burgh family, to Richard Waterton.

In the time of Sir Robert Waterton who served King Henry VIII

Henry VIII of England

Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...

the hall came to waters edge and was three storeys high. Sir Robert Waterton's father in law was Sir Richard Tempest, who was with King Henry VIII at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. His father in law was also Steward of the King's manor of Wakefield and involved in the Tempest - Saville feud. The only part that remains is the old watergate, which is said to be part of an earlier structure again. At that time it was the only entrance to be made, and across a lowered drawbridge. The old oak hall referred to by Charles Waterton was on the second storey and was in an L shape.

The entrance hall at Walton Hall still has armoral shields on the walls that represent the ancestors of the Waterton family at Walton Hall. The Waterton family intermarried with other prominent Yorkshire families of the medieval age, including the Percys, the Barnbys, the Wentworths, the Hildyards and others.