Dawnay Estates is owned by the 12th Viscount Downe, who lives at Wykeham Abbey. He is the direct descendent of Sir John Dawnay who purchased the Danby Estate in 1656. Sir John was a loyal supporter of King Charles I, fighting on his behalf throughout the civil war. After the creation of the Commonwealth, it is thought that he purchased the Estate as it was in a relatively inaccessible part of Royalist England and the south of the country had become rather uncomfortable. He was created 1st Viscount Downe on the restoration of Charles II to the throne. The family fell in love with the area and live there to this day.

The family obtained the title “Baron of Danby” in 1899 when the 8th Viscount was created the 1st Baron. Hugh Richard was an extraordinary man. He was an early fan of cricket being in one of the first representative teams to play in an international touring side, a team of legendary Aborigines; he later became President of the MCC. He moved in mildly diplomatic circles and “helped” give the Order of the Garter to the King of Spain, which hardly sounds onerous and seemingly had to award the Garter to the Shah of Persia without assistance! He also became head of Queen Victoria’s bodyguards where he arranged, in conjunction with the Queen, that they ought to wear of version of the German spiked helmet with the sole objective being to irritate the Kaiser. Evidently the Queen could be amused. Eventually he gained his second peerage to firmly cement the family’s relationship with Danby.

Wykeham Abbey is built on the site of a Cistercian Priory founded in 1153. The nuns were not the most observant, it is said that two once started on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, but only got to London where they remained in a less godly profession. Following the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII the Estate eventually passed into the hands of the Langleys who subsequently left the Estate to Marmaduke Dawnay, a cousin, in 1820. It did not become the permanent home of the Dawnay family until 1910 when Beningbrough Hall was sold and Wykeham became the centre of the Yorkshire Estates. During the first world war the Abbey was used as a military hospital hopefully providing a peaceful contrast to the horrors of Flander's fields.