Sir Thomas Ingilby has written a book about Yorkshire's great houses. He knows the subject inside out. After all, he lives in one, reports CHARLES HUTCHINSON.

TURN to Page 86 of Yorkshire's Great Houses, and Dr Gerald Rolph is pictured in the great hall of Allerton Castle, looking contented at his beneficent restoration work.

Published this week, the book is already out of date, because fire gutted that 70ft-high hall in January. "Look at what happened at Allerton since the book's pictures were taken," says author Sir Thomas Ingilby, baronet of Ripley Castle, near Harrogate.

"That fire, or the tremendous destruction of Newburgh Priory since the war... these buildings look redoubtable but really they are very fragile places.

"Houses have a life span, just as we do, and they're just as prone to accidents as we are. The sudden accidental death of a great house is not uncommon."

Dr Rolph has vowed to restore Allerton Castle to all its gothic splendour once more, and likewise Sir Thomas's book is a "tribute to those largely unsung and under-appreciated heroes and visionaries who have helped Yorkshire's stately homes to swim against the tide of evolution".

For nearly 700 years, the Ingilby family has lived at Ripley Castle, and on-going building work testifies to the never-ending need to change and adapt to the times while utilising tradition to the maximum.

"It's quite remarkable; 20, 30 years ago you would never have thought of doing corporate hospitality or weddings," Sir Thomas says. "I can remember going to a seminar in Kent, where it was suggested great houses should make commercial use of drawing rooms. I thought that was mad; I couldn't see it happening, but here we are doing more than 100 weddings a year, each one very different."

That is but one strand of a regeneration of Yorkshire's great houses, from Castle Howard to Harewood, Ripley Castle to Allerton Castle.

"In the book, I wanted to recognise the extraordinary changes in employment. Of all the changes in the 20th century in farming, engineering, shipbuilding, mining, stately homes were the only ones that picked themselves up and reinvented themselves and yet they were the least likely to do that," says Sir Thomas.

"Their demise was the most spectacular. Castle Howard had gone from 100 people living there in 1900 down to 30 by the end of the Second World War, and yet the estate has ended up employing as many people now as it did at the start of the 20th century, but with a very different work profile. Now they have degrees and a great deal of commercial experience."

Sir Thomas was commissioned to write the book by Dalesman Publishing two years ago. "I've done a lot of talks to various community groups around the county on Yorkshire's stately homes, so it had always been in my mind to put it into print. Like a lot of people, I've spent a lot of time talking about doing a project rather than doing it, so The Dalesman threw down the gauntlet and said 'Let's be having it'," he recalls.

"I decided to try to cover a range of houses from smaller houses that were not well known or maybe not even known to the public at all, through to the big houses, such as Castle Howard and Harewood, to give a spectrum of how houses have fared over the years and to look at what it's like to live and work in them."

Ripley Castle, with its hotel, restaurant and bistro bar, shops, conference and wedding facilities and commercial shooting days, is typical of the route being taken by Yorkshire's great houses.

"One of the things that has become clear is that unless there are significant personal means behind these houses, the commercial route is absolutely essential for survival, but that's where there's a clash.

"On the one hand, the heritage and conservation bodies would like things not to change at all; on the other hand, there's the need for these places to move on, generate new income and tackle the backlog of structural decay," Sir Thomas says.

"The heritage bodies are quite happy to accept that principle. It's when you get down to the detail that it's much harder, and I think all the houses have had problems with the heritage lobby."

Like painting the Forth Bridge, the upkeep and reinvigoration of the great houses must go on.

"Running a place like Ripley is like steering a supertanker. You start turning the wheel and it takes a long time before you start seeing the bow, and a very long time to complete the manoeuvre," he says.

Nevertheless, Sir Thomas believes the role of Yorkshire's great houses is growing stronger, not least because they attract none of the town-country divide that has led to the fox-hunting ban.

"For many of these houses, survival will be a success. There will still be light at the end of the tunnel, and there is definitely more light than there was 20 years ago," he says.

"Rural jobs are going left, right and centre, but these houses are providing good employment in rural areas at no mean expense to the owners... he says through gritted teeth!"

Yorkshire's Great Houses, Behind The Scenes by Sir Thomas Ingilby, published by Dalesman Publishing in hardback, £19.99.

Updated: 08:49 Saturday, March 12, 2005