Rudby Hall sends its couples three miles down the road to be married. Weddings are held in a marquee run by Forest Hill Weddings at Potto, according to Rudby Hall, while the hall is where the wedding party sleeps, dresses and is photographed. The house stands on the edge of the North York Moors National Park between Hutton Rudby and Stokesley, and runs as a boutique hotel whose guests can book suites and doubles individually, or take the whole house.
A Salvin house on the edge of the moors
The hall dates from 1838. It was built as Skutterskelfe Hall, by its own account on the site of an earlier house called Leven Grove, to designs by the architect Anthony Salvin for Lady Amelia Cary, a daughter of William IV, and her husband, the 10th Viscount Falkland. It is listed Grade II*. Country Life records that the Falklands sold to the Ropner family in 1898, and the hall’s rooms still carry names from that past: Lord Falkand, in the hall’s own spelling, Lady Amelia, Mrs Jordan after Lady Amelia’s mother, and Ronald Ropner after a former owner. The hall also says that a weir and pump house on the River Leven once generated electricity for it, which it describes as making it the second house in the world to be electrified, after Cragside in Northumberland.
The day before and the day after
For a wedding the hall’s role is practical. It offers a bridal suite for photographs, says that its south facing aspect suits golden hour pictures, and can arrange transport to and from the marquee at Potto. The suites give the party somewhere to dress and gather. The Lord Falkand suite measures 50 square metres, with a super king sleigh bed and a separate bath and shower. The Lady Amelia suite is the only room with a balcony, looking over the grounds to the Cleveland Hills. The Captain’s Nest, in a former water tower, is the only room on the third floor, and Sholly has the hall’s only four poster bed.
Staying in the house
There are 13 bedrooms in three categories, standard double, large double and suite, spread over three floors, each with a private bathroom or shower room. A party that wants the whole house can hire it for three to seven days, for up to 32 people, and has ten acres of lawns, woodland and riverside; a large country kitchen with an electric Aga; a lounge with a log fire; a drawing room with a wooden floor and a high ceiling; a library with its original fireplace and a boardroom table; and a bar beneath the stairs with a working wine fridge. A lift serves two floors, there is a ground floor accessible toilet, and parking takes up to 30 cars. The Garden House, once the butler’s pantry, sleeps four in the grounds.
Planning a wedding around Rudby Hall
Ask Forest Hill Weddings about the ceremony, guest numbers and price, and ask the hall about rooms or whole house hire on the nights around the date and the cost of transport to the marquee. Whole house prices appear only in the hall’s booking engine.
The hall suits a wedding party that wants to stay together in one listed house before and after the day, on the edge of the moors, with the ceremony elsewhere. See the Rudby Hall profile for the house and gallery, browse wedding venues in the United Kingdom or Yorkshire.
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