Grantley Hall, a 160-room historic pile in North Yorkshire, is on the market for £4.75 million. Derek Pearson, the owner, is relinquishing his dream of turning the late 17th-century mansion into the epitome of the dream family home and relocating to Portugal. The coal miner-turned-property developer and businessmen acquired Grantley Hall just four years ago, paying £3million to North Yorkshire County Council. The estate was being used as an adult education centre, but the authority was unable to make the venture pay.

At the time, there were dozens of bedrooms, now there are just six in use, part of the wholesale makeover of the house, which is five miles from Ripon, close to the ruins of Fountains Abbey. The work, which cost at least £1million, included sourcing stone slates to repair vast areas of roof and the installation of a new boiler, which has cut the oil bill from £20,000 a year to just £9,000.

When I arrived at Grantley Hall, I was tempted to walk the 1,000-yard drive out of reverence for the beauty of the house. Besides the drive there rises the River Skell, formed into a grand cascade by a series of weirs.

Part of Pearson's project was to turn the house into a home. He has established his wife, Kay, and family in the south wing by the river, where low ceilings provide cosy proportions and the low window sills offer views into the grounds. His five-year-old son Joe has a stately Thomas the Tank Engine bed, and all six new bathrooms have Villeroy & Boch fittings. He has also tackled the grand Georgian saloons along the 200ft entrance front. Specialist painters have worked for months on mobile scaffolds reclining in bath chairs so that they do not crick their necks, picking out mouldings in gold leaf.

There are mahogany doors, plaster medallions as delicate as Wedgwood, frothy rococo doorways and ceilings abounding in swirling fronds of acanthus and vines, with grapes newly painted a luscious red. The panelling in the Edwardian library is so dark and richly carved that you are certain to fall asleep on the sofa.

Pearson's working life began with 11 years down the pit at Grimethorpe Colliery - whose band starred in the film Brassed Off - before he discovered a talent for property development, buying a house for £1,000 and selling it for £11,000. “When I was a boy I did a paper round, a window-cleaning round and brought in people's coal. I never had a day off in 30 years and would collapse on the bed after a 16-hour shift.” His property business led him to accumulate a number of building plots on the edge of Yorkshire towns such as Doncaster and Skipton. After selling Grantley, he plans to keep a pied-à-terre in the area and to build a villa in Portugal.

Grantley's grand entrance range was mainly the work of Sir Fletcher Norton, a Speaker of the House of Commons who was ennobled as Lord Grantley. The 5thBaron Grantley sold the house in 1900 to the shipping magnate Sir Christopher Furness, who enlarged the ballroom with columns and niches. In 1925 the Grantley estate was sold to another industrial magnate, Sir William Aykroyd, who entertained Queen Mary there in 1937. Six years later the house became a convalescent home for wounded servicemen. When the last patient left in 1946, the hall would have been demolished but for the county council, which bought it for £13,500 in 1947.

One solution today would be to divide the house into apartments, but Pearson says: “I've seen too many bad conversions so I accepted a covenant from the council that the main building can't be divided up for 80 years, unless 50 per cent of the uplift in value goes to the council, which means it wouldn't be viable.”

So the choice is to make Grantley Hall your very own stately home or use it as an hotel or wedding venue.

Fact Box

What you get: Grade II* house with 160 rooms, 28 acres and fishing on the River Skell. In all, 32,000 sq ft.

Where it is: Five miles from Ripon, 11 miles from Harrogate. Schools: Ripon Cathedral Choir School; Ripon Grammar; Aysgarth School, Bedale; Fountains Primary School.

Where to eat: Yorke Arms Ramsgill; Lockwoods, Ripon.

Price: £4.75 million via Knight Frank , 020-7629 8171, and Savills , 020-7499 8644

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