Goddards was commissioned by Kathleen and Noel Goddard Terry, of the chocolate manufacturing firm Joseph Terry & Sons. It was designed by the celebrated York architect Walter Brierley (1862–1926), in the Tudor Arts and Crafts style that he utilised throughout his career. It remained in the family until 1980. In 1984 the house, and its garden designed by George Dillistone (1877–1957), were acquired by the National Trust as an administrative property with help from the Noel Goddards Terry Charitable Trust. The magnificent collection of eighteenth-century furniture once housed there is now owned and displayed by the York Civic Trust at Fairfax House, York. The few pictures in the offices, notably William Mulready's 'Crossing the Ford', are not indigenous.