The first mention of Parcevall Hall is in the will of Peter Yorke in 1589. The gardens, as they exist today, were created by Sir William Milner in a project which started in 1927 and took thirty men three years to complete. Sir William enjoyed the advice of some of the best amateur gardeners of the time and planted many types of rhododendrons and shrubs and plants from Western China and Tibet. There is a wood, a cliff garden, an orchard and a wonderful semi-natural rock garden through which a stream flows on its way to feed the ponds and water features of the more formal areas and terraces fronting the hall. The very pure water supply is from an old mine level in the hills closeby. The pools grow Charophytes, higher algaes only growing in the purest spring water. The terraces and long red borders are laid out on the form of the Cross as Sir William was a deeply religioius man. He left the property to the Walsingham Shrine who let it to Bradford Diocese to run as a Retreat House. Parcevall Hall gardens have evolved to be in harmony with the surrounding fells and are utterly quiet and peaceful.