The Catholic Radclyffes built a private chapel adjacent in 1616 which stands; it also has ancient monument and listed building status.

A later owner, Francis Radclyffe, 1st Earl of Derwentwater was a Royalist during the Civil War and his estates were sequestrated by the Commonwealth.

The 3rd Earl, as son of Lady Mary Tudor an acknowledged child of Charles II began in 1709 ambitious works to replace the old house with a substantial mansion.

[5][6] The purchase had been, according to the commissioners' registrar, signed on behalf of a group including John Bond, Sir Joseph Eyles and Matthew White.

[6] Two commissioners were held responsible for the contract (irregular and at an undervalue), Denis Bond and John Birch so expelled from the Commons for their part in the affair,[7] whereas Sir John Eyles and Sir Thomas Hales, who had conducted the original sale and whose names had been on the final contract suffered no penalty.

2. c. 29) directed that Crown income from the estate (after payment of various annuities and the interest on mortgages) should be employed to completing the building of Greenwich Hospital.

[4][8] Dilston Hall (left uncompleted on the execution of the 3rd Earl) thus became residence for the hospital's local estate steward, but, deteriorating, the commissioners ordered its demolition in 1765, leaving the castle tower and the chapel.

Accordingly, a compromise was reached that the Hospital Commissioners should pay Lord Kinnaird £24,000, and that £6,000 should be divided among his siblings, else they would have all become destitute upon the death of their mother.

The 5th Earl of Newburgh then applied to Parliament for restitution of the estates, but was granted an annuity of £2,500, which he and his widow enjoyed until their deaths in 1814 and 1861 respectively.

Excavations shortly after have documented the remains of the demolished Dilston Hall and its 17th-century service range, and evidenced the medieval manor.

This was partly the purchase decision of the late life peer actor-manager Lord Rix, raised in East Yorkshire, recipient of ten honorary degrees and a knighthood, having a daughter with Down Syndrome and after decades of fundraising for them becoming Mencap's President.