Donate
Everyone needs nature, now more than ever. Donate today and you could help people and nature to thrive at the places we care for.
Discover how staff, volunteers and specialist contractors work together at East Riddlesden Hall to carry out important conservation and cleaning throughout the year. Find out what it takes to keep the house and collection in excellent condition and preserved for future generations to enjoy too.
Throughout the year, members of the East Riddlesden Hall team squeeze behind furniture, climb up ladders and reach under beds to remove dust from all the nooks and crannies.
Dust builds up quickly in a house like East Riddlesden Hall and it can cause damage by general soiling or by speeding up chemical processes that lead to material breakdown. We always dust with a dry cloth or fine horsehair brush and we never use polish as this leaves a film on the surface of the object.
Every object in the collection gets personal attention and we check its condition against our care plan records to make sure that no damage has been done in the past year.
The wooden floors in the house suffer from wear and tear from the 38,000 pairs of shoes that tread the floorboards each year. We try to stop as much gravel and dirt from coming into the house as possible, by using coir mats at the entrance. Research has shown that we need to use 3 metres of this to catch all the dirt.
Every morning we dry mop the floors to remove dust and dirt from the previous day. Doing this in the morning allows for the dust to settle overnight. Each winter we apply traffic wax to the boards to keep them in great condition.
Throughout 2023 and 2024 we are working to update the history told throughout the hall.
Starting with the Kitchen Chamber, where we hope to tell some of the stories of the last residents who lived here, the Bailey family.
They lived and farmed the estate at East Riddlesden as tenants until 1934.
Discover some of the recent work completed to help care for the collection.
With your ongoing support, we're able to continue our vital conservation work. Thank you for helping to protect these special places.
Everyone needs nature, now more than ever. Donate today and you could help people and nature to thrive at the places we care for.
Uncover the story of this 17th-century manor house and how each of its owners left their mark, then learn how two brothers stepped in to save it from demolition in the 1930s.
Explore this homely 17th-century manor house and discover original oak panelling, decorative ceilings and period furnishings, then learn of the estate's agricultural past in the Great Barn.
Take a stroll through the gardens and experience winter at East Riddlesden Hall.
Read about our strategy 'For everyone, for ever' here at the National Trust, which will take the organisation through to 2025.
We believe that nature, beauty and history are for everyone. That’s why we’re supporting wildlife, protecting historic sites and more. Find out about our work.