The Parkland Centre has been created out of buildings
which are thought to have been constructed in the early 18th
century for an unknown purpose. Lord Feversham thinks that
they were built as kennels, possibly to house a pack of foxhounds.
At the turn of the century a laundry was located here and later,
for many years, they were lived in by the head gamekeeper on
the Estate, Adam Gordon, who died some years ago in his nineties.
The Parkland
Centre
The
Parland Centre is today home to the Tea Rooms and
Gift Shop.
Mr Gordon was an outstanding countryman
and naturalist. Originally trained as a taxidermist he came
to Duncombe Park in 1911 from Windsor Castle, where he had
been a gamekeeper for King Edward VII. There were few country
pursuits in which he was not an expert. Ferrets, dog handling,
fishing and falconry he was master of them all. As a naturalist
he will be remembered for his discovery of Salmincola Gordoni
, a parasite living on the gills of trout. His collection
of bats was presented to the Yorkshire Museum in 1976. Mr
Gordon was the first person to record the barbastelle bat
in Yorkshire and he rediscovered the lesser horseshoe bat
which was thought at one time to be extinct. He found both
these bats in the dungeons of Helmsley Castle.
As you take tea in Gordon's living accommodation
or shop in the room where he used to stuff and mount the animals
brought to him by local people, an owl or some other creature
struck down, perhaps by a passing motor car, spare a thought
for him and his life. For at the end of the day the real privilege
enjoyed by the Duncombes at Helmsley during these past three
hundred years has been to have lived in such a beautiful place
amongst kind, courteous and interesting people of great character,
of whom Adam Gordon was one amongst many. It is the people who
live and work here who lie at the heart of the Estate.
