A linen weaver spent sixteen years cutting a house out of solid rock with hand tools alone, and his descendants lived in it for over two centuries.
Thomas Hill wove linen for a living. He wasn’t a stonemason, an architect, or anyone with a reason to think he could build a house inside a cliff. Between 1770 and 1786, working with his oldest son, also called Thomas, and nothing more advanced than hand tools, he did exactly that. The House in the Rock still stands above the River Nidd in Knaresborough today, and Hill’s descendants lived in it until 1996.
Most rock-cut buildings in Britain are ancient: hermitages, chapels, storage cut by people whose names nobody recorded. This one has a name, a date, and a family history that runs unbroken for over 200 years. That alone makes it unusual. The labour behind it makes it something else entirely.
The Story
Hill rented a nearby cottage while he worked, chipping his way into the cliff face bit by bit over sixteen years with his son beside him. There was no crew, no machinery, nothing beyond the tools two men could hold. When it was finished, he named it Fort Montague, in honour of Lady Elizabeth Montagu, who’d given him some financial support along the way, and moved his family in.
The house wasn’t a curiosity built for show. It was a working home, split across levels cut into the rock, with Hill flying the national flag, firing a small cannon and even printing his own banknotes, the kind of eccentric flourishes a man who’d just spent sixteen years proving a point might reasonably indulge in. It became known locally simply as the House in the Rock from the 1930s onward, and it stayed in his family’s hands for generation after generation.
The last of Hill’s descendants to live there was Nancy Buckle, a former Town Crier, who remained until 1996. The house was entirely closed to public access in 2000, when it became a private residence, closing the door on what had, for a time, been a popular local tourist attraction.
What You See When You Visit
You can’t go inside. That’s worth saying plainly, because it’s easy to assume a building with this kind of history is open to the public the way a National Trust property might be. It isn’t. What you can see from Abbey Road below is the structure itself: a turreted, castle-like frontage built directly into the cliff face, looking out over the River Nidd, with the rock walls doing double duty as both foundation and fortress.
Standing on the road looking up at it, the strangest detail isn’t the turrets. It’s the ordinariness of the windows set into solid stone, proof that whatever else this building is, it was built to be lived in, not admired. In late afternoon, with the sun low over the Nidd, the cliff face throws the whole structure into sharp relief, exactly the kind of light that would have picked out every tool mark Hill and his son left in the rock.
Why It Matters
Knaresborough has more than one building cut into its cliffs. A short walk away stands the Chapel of Our Lady of the Crag, a genuinely medieval structure, founded in 1408 under licence from Henry IV and now Grade I listed. The chapel’s origin story involves a mason whose son survived a rockfall at the quarry, a piece of local folklore layered onto real, documented history. Between the chapel and the House in the Rock, Knaresborough has two entirely different eras of people looking at the same cliff and deciding to build into it rather than in front of it.
That’s the detail most visitors to Knaresborough miss entirely, distracted by Mother Shipton’s Cave and the castle. The town’s relationship with its own rock face runs from 15th-century religious devotion to 18th-century stubborn individual ambition, and both are still standing.
When to Go
Late afternoon light works best for viewing the exterior, when the low sun picks out the texture of the stonework. The site is outdoors and viewable year-round, though winter light through bare trees along the Nidd can give a clearer, less obstructed view of the full structure than summer foliage allows.
Getting There
Knaresborough railway station sits on the Harrogate Line, run by Northern Trains, with half-hourly services to Leeds and York Monday to Saturday and hourly services on Sundays. From the station, the House in the Rock is a walkable distance through the town centre and down towards Abbey Road, following the river.
Where to Eat and Drink Nearby
The Knaresborough Inn, Knaresborough. A 56-room inn with an on-site restaurant serving Yorkshire pub food with a seasonal menu, roughly ten minutes’ walk from the town’s main attractions.
Mother Shipton Inn, Knaresborough. A 16th-century coaching inn beside the Low Bridge and the River Nidd, close enough to combine with a walk down to the House in the Rock.
Where to Stay
The Knaresborough Inn, Knaresborough. Comfortable, straightforward rooms with free parking and a dog-friendly policy, a practical base for exploring the town’s rock-cut history on foot.
Worth Knowing
- Thomas Hill and his son built the entire structure using hand tools alone, over sixteen years, with no machinery of any kind.
- The house takes its familiar name from the 1930s. For over a century before that, it was known as Fort Montague, after Hill’s patron Lady Elizabeth Montagu.
- The nearby Chapel of Our Lady of the Crag has been a Grade I listed building since 1952, one of the few rock-cut religious sites in England still in active use as a place of worship.
Practical Tips
- View the House in the Rock from Abbey Road only; it’s a private residence with no public access to the interior or grounds.
- Combine the visit with the Chapel of Our Lady of the Crag, a short walk away, to see both eras of Knaresborough’s rock-cut building tradition in one visit.
- Wear comfortable shoes for the riverside path along the Nidd, which can be uneven in places.
- Visit in late afternoon for the best light on the cliff face.
- Use the AllTrails app to plan a longer riverside walk incorporating both sites if you want to make a full afternoon of it.
Reader Q&A
Can you go inside the House in the Rock?
No. It became a private residence in 2000 and has no public access. It’s viewable only from Abbey Road.
Who built the House in the Rock?
Thomas Hill, a local linen weaver, working with his oldest son, also named Thomas, using only hand tools between 1770 and 1786.
Is the House in the Rock the same as the Chapel of Our Lady of the Crag?
No. They’re two separate rock-cut structures near each other in Knaresborough. The chapel dates to 1408 and remains a place of worship; the House in the Rock is an 18th-century private home.
How long did Thomas Hill’s family live there?
Descendants of Thomas Hill lived in the house for over two centuries, until 1996, when the last resident, former Town Crier Nancy Buckle, moved out.
A man with no training in stonework spent sixteen years proving he didn’t need any, and the house he built outlasted him by over two hundred years.
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