Cusworth Hall and Park

Cusworth Hall is an 18th-century Grade I listed country house near Doncaster in South Yorkshire. It stands on a limestone slope above the village of Cusworth, linked to service wings that frame a rectangular main block. The house replaced an earlier manor and was designed by George Platt in the Palladian style, with later additions by James Paine including a chapel and library. Its stable block, brew house and lodge sit within the wider park, while Lady Isabella’s Garden lies to the west. The Peacock Pen, an ornate iron enclosure, sits beside the gardeners’ bothy on the eastern side. The house reflects the fortunes of the Wrightson and Battie-Wrightson families, who shaped its history over centuries. William Wrightson commissioned the new hall in the 1740s, and his son became an MP and High Sheriff. The estate passed through generations, with landscape designer Richard Woods transforming the surroundings in the 1760s. He created a serpentine river with three lakes, the Rock Arch and the Cascade across 250 acres. Later owners made further changes, and in 1967 the hall opened as a museum of South Yorkshire life. Inside, the former reception rooms and galleries now display the region’s history. The stable block houses tearooms, and the walled garden still shows Woods’s 18th-century layout. Visitors walk past the Bowling Green and the surviving entrance terrace walls, with views over the park’s restored landscape. The Rock Arch and Cascade remain key features, and archaeological work has uncovered details of Woods’s original plans. The hall and its surroundings offer a quiet but rich record of Georgian country life.