As our Uber approached the stately manor house at Grimston Park, a historic North Yorkshire estate about 25 minutes west of York, the size of the property immediately struck us. The sprawling 2,500-acre estate was a far cry from our quaint 200-acre family farm in Ekfrid Township near Melbourne, Ont.
But surprisingly, we felt right at home.
Along with my parents, Debbie and Alexander, we had travelled to this far-flung county to visit this rather impressive place because our ancestor James Alexander (1824-1895), my three-times great-grandfather, once lived, worked and worshipped here. (Though he likely arrived here via Scotland by horsedrawn coach, not electric car.)
After working as a farm manager at Grimston for nearly a decade, James set out in 1853 to “seek his fortune” and find his own piece of land in Canada. He established our farm in 1870, and it’s been in continuous operation ever since.
After reading James’s letters of reference from Grimston—which are now cherished family heirlooms—my dad wanted to see the estate firsthand.
On a typically grey Yorkshire day, Grimston’s current owner and custodian, John Fielden, warmly welcomed us with a smile and piping hot tea. The Fieldens have owned the property since 1872, having purchased it from the former owner, nobleman and notorious spendthrift, Lord Londesborough.
John’s ancestors are notable in their own right. His two-times great-grandfather and namesake became a titan of the cotton-milling industry, employing upwards of 2,500 in the 1840s. But he wasn’t your typical tycoon: as an MP in the British Parliament, John Fielden the elder campaigned for the poor and labour rights, and led the passage of the 1847 Ten-Hour Act, which limited the number of hours worked by women and children.
Although our James had left Grimston prior to the Fielden era, John was able to shed light on what his time would’ve been like on the estate. James worked there during the tenures of not one, not two but three separate lords: Lord Howden, Queen Victoria’s ambassador to Spain, the first Lord Londesborough, a standup chap, and his son, the aforementioned shopaholic and Victorian party animal.
During James’s time as farm manager, we learned he oversaw the “home farm”—the stables, gardens, crops and livestock that served the lord’s own household—and not the surrounding tracts of land cultivated by tenant farmers. Surprisingly, John explained that James was likely more middle management: overseeing people, workflows, timelines and techniques rather than hands-on farm labour.
Standing on the original cobblestones by the stables, now converted to country-chic cottages, we could clearly picture James leading a horse or directing a stable boy. We wondered: had he ever imagined his Canadian descendants standing on the same spot, nearly two centuries later?
Though the other barns and outbuildings of James’s former workplace have been lost to history, there is another structure he would’ve known very well: St. John the Baptist Church nestled on the edge of the estate. We know from James’s reference letters—and his later work on the Melbourne Presbyterian Church—that he was a man of sober faith. So, he clearly spent a lot of time in this 12th-century stone church, just a short walk from the Grimston home farm.
Entering through the ancient Norman door and archway, it was fascinating to think how old it was even in James’s time. On any given Sunday, he would’ve passed over the same threshold and flagstones, quarried from local mines, and gazed through the same 15th-century windows. We marvelled at an intricately carved Anglo-Saxon cross (circa 890) discovered on the site during renovations.
Before giving us a tour of the charming churchyard, with its hodgepodge of tombstones covering centuries of life and death, John pointed out one modern addition to this venerable place of worship: a stained-glass panel erected in 1980 to honour his late mother. It’s a touching example of the ever-churning tides of history.
After sitting on a pew to reflect on our own full-circle moment of family heritage, we piled into John’s Volvo for a drive through the rest of the enormous estate. We pass countless grazing sheep, a whimsical 180-year-old flag-tower folly, fields of crops, stud livery stables, cozy cottages and stone farm buildings converted to offices.
Relaxing over a pub lunch in the nearby village of Towton, my parents and I devoured John’s stories about life at Grimston, both today and centuries ago. After leaving such an established, well-appointed and modern (for its day) estate, we wondered what James thought of Ekfrid Township when he arrived? A wild place with untamed wilderness and virtually no infrastructure.
With a pint of local ale, we toasted James Alexander and his tenacity to seek his fortune in the wilds of Canada.
