The Castle Howard Foundation (“CHF”) has been successful in its application to the Community Energy Fund for a grant to conduct detailed feasibility work into a geothermal system to decarbonise the heating of all the properties in the village of Coneysthorpe.

The grant has been awarded alongside match-funding by Third Energy (a local energy company) and Castle Howard Estate Limited.

This follows a high-level study that was commissioned in March 2024 which concluded that the system could provide the 40 dwellings at Coneysthorpe with all their heat demands, reduce future heating costs and reduce specific carbon emissions by at least 80%.

Based on a two well, medium depth system, the detailed study at Coneysthorpe will look at the connection costs per residential property, the precise location of the wells, the pipeline network route, planning considerations, the governance and ownership structure of the network and the financing of future development of the network. It will also include community outreach including letterbox drops and public meetings to ensure that all residents are engaged and involved in project development.

The initial report was commissioned following a visit by the owner, Nicholas Howard and Castle Howard Estate Chief Executive, Jasper Hasell to a geothermal demonstrator site near Kirby Misperton.

This demonstrator project, operated by CeraPhi Energy and Third Energy has successfully repurposed a redundant gas well in the area for geothermal heat use and, due to its favourable geology, is putting North Yorkshire at the forefront of low-temperature geothermal heat networks in the UK.

CHF hopes the Coneysthorpe project will add to these efforts by proving the advantages of such systems for rural, often listed, oil-based residential properties for which other routes to net zero are challenging. These local efforts are aided by the fact that North Yorkshire benefits from a subterranean salt layer which can boost available deep-source heat, providing a “hot spot” compared to the rest of the UK.

This project follows a long tradition of harnessing heat from beneath our feet after Castle Howard installed a lake source heat pump over two decades ago which now provides heating to the mansion house all year round.

The ‘decarbonising Coneyshtorpe’ project is also complementary to similar efforts by Castle Howard and local community action groups in the village of Slingsby where initial feasibility on geothermal heat solutions to support the village school, church, hall and sports facilities is nearing completion and funding for the next phase of feasibility studies is now being sought.

Jasper Hasell, Estate Chief Executive at Castle Howard said “We look forward to continuing the work on decarbonising Coneysthorpe using innovative geothermal technology. We have always been at the forefront of such sustainable concepts with a lake-source heating system already in use on the estate. Leveraging the existing deep geothermal progress in North Yorkshire is a natural extension to our sustainability efforts.”

Russell Hoare, Third Energy said “We have various projects within the region looking at repurposing of existing gas wells for geothermal use but the opportunity to work with Castle Howard and the residents of Coneysthorpe to decarbonise a rural heat systems using new wells is an exciting extension to our work that could have profound effects on the roadmap to net zero for North Yorkshire and the UK.”