[1] In the 16th century a house called Hickleton Palace stood on the site, built for Judge Francis Rodes.

The present Hall was built in 1745–1748, just to the south of the original house, designed by the architect James Paine for Godfrey Wentworth of Woolley, near Barnsley, who had bought the estate in about 1730.

Charles Wood was MP for Grimsby, Wareham, Halifax and Ripon.

He died in 1885 at the Hall, which was then inherited by his son Charles Lindley Wood (1839–1934), the 2nd Viscount and on his death by his son, Edward Wood, the 3rd Viscount Halifax, who was Viceroy of India from 1926 to 1929, Foreign Secretary from 1938 to 1940 and created Earl of Halifax in 1944.

[4] The Halifax family preferred their estate at Garrowby to Hickleton and in 1947 sold the contents of Hickleton Hall and leased the premises as a girls' school, St Hilda's Church of England school run by members of the Order of the Holy Paraclete Convent).