Leeds Festival Research

Bramham Park

The festival now takes place on the grounds of Bramham Park. Bramham Park was built in 1698 and its famous landscape laid out over the following 30 years by Robert Benson, 1^st Lord Bingley. After 300 years, which include the South Sea Bubble, the untimely death of the heir, dissipation by illegitimate children, crippling gambling debts, a devastating fire, the ravages of two World Wars and death duties, the same family still lives at Bramham and cares for its heritage. Below is an image of their family tree.

Robert Benson (1st Lord Bingley) 1675-1731

Born at Wrenthorpe, near Wakefield, in 1675.  His father was a lawyer, who managed to prosper under Charles I, the Commonwealth and the restored Charles II.  He was twice Lord Mayor of York and five times MP for the City. When he died in 1676, he left the infant Robert "£3,000 per annum in land and £120,000 in money".  From his mother, Dorothy, a daughter of Tobias Jenkins, he also inherited St.William's College in York (which remained in the family until the turn of the C20th).

Benson completed his education in 1697 with a Grand Tour of Europe.  In Rome he met the future Earl of Aylesford, whose sister he was later to marry.  More important he started to formulate his grand design for Bramham, based upon what he had seen of Italian architecture and French garden design.  He probably masterminded the choice of site, the layout of the house, gardens, park, water and woodlands himself.

Away from Bramham, Robert Benson's career prospered both in politics and business.  He was elected MP for York in 1705 and joined the Government in 1710, first as Commissioner of the Treasury and then Lord Treasurer to Queen Anne.  In 1713 he became Ambassador to Spain and was created Lord Bingley.  His last appointment was as Treasurer to the Household of George II.

In business, he was a director of the South Seas Company.  An angry mob is reported to have stoned his carriage in Cavendish Square after the South Sea Bubble burst.

Horace Walpole (4^th Earl of Oxford and builder of Strawberry Hill) dismissed Benson as "a person of no extraction" and on his elevation to the peerage, his lack of a coat of arms was remarked upon, but he found favour with Queen Anne; she was his guest at least once at Bramham.  He also seems to have been accepted into society as he married Lady Elizabeth Finch, daughter of the 1^st Earl of Aylesford.  By her he had a daughter, Harriet, who succeeded him in 1731.  He is buried in St Paul's Chapel in Westminster Abbey.