The Hawk Creative Business Park is a sustainable development of office space developed by the late Sir Ben Gill for the 21st century world of business.
The Park was opened in 2008. It was developed from Home Farm, a mixed pastoral and arable family farm with some 360 acres of surrounding land, that was originally part of the nearby Hawkhills Estate. Sir Ben’s father, William Norman Gill, had bought the farm in 1940 before passing it on to Sir Ben, after he returned from a spell of teaching agriculture in Uganda in the early 1970s.
In 2004, the family made the decision that the future of the site was no longer best served by maintaining it as a working farm but by pursuing an alternative path. Sir Ben’s idea was simple: to demonstrate how businesses need not compromise on sustainability, connectivity and accessibility when it came to choosing rural office space in one of the most beautiful parts of country. A sixth generation Yorkshire farmer and a proud visionary of a more sustainable future, he want to show how even the oldest of buildings could be transformed in a way that made sense environmentally as well as commercially.
Created from a quadrangle of historic model farm buildings some of which reputedly date back to the Medieval times, the Park is set in a courtyard design within 30 acres of beautiful parkland including woodland and two small lakes, approached from the A19 by an impressive tree-lined drive.
Records going back to the 1830s show a farmhouse and buildings at “Low Hawk Hills”. That farmhouse forms what is now known as the “Old Farmhouse” on the Park and was built with small, 2 inch bricks and comprised a one storey building.The building to the immediate west was built at a later stage but was used as a blacksmith for the Farm and the larger Hawkhills Estate. “The Smithy”, as it was known, had in it a working large set of bellows which were in place until the 1990s when the building was substantially damaged by a heavy snow storm.
While carrying out the development of the Hawk in 2007, under the watchful and expert eye of the York Archaeological Trust, remnants of a medieval barn were discovered under part of “Golden Eagle” giving further proof of by-gone habitation.
Today, the Park is overseen by Sir Ben’s four sons, Adam, Robin, Oliver and Edward, with Adam acting as Managing Director. All four grew up at Home Farm and were responsible for helping run it. That role continues today, in the form of the Hawk Creative Business Park.
