1250-1588 The Goldsborough Family
By the middle of the 13th century the Goldsborough family lived in a thatched moated Manor House at the opposite end of the village which was destroyed by fire after a family feud in 1588.
1599 Sir Richard Hutton
Sir Richard Hutton, knighted in 1617, was a prominent London lawyer, whose sons became the MP for Knaresborough and High Sheriff of Yorkshire. He purchased the village and all claimants to its land in 1599 and started construction of the present Goldsborough Hall on raised land close to the church in 1601. The portrait of Sir Richard Hutton is reproduced by kind permission of the Treasurer and Masters of the Bench of Gray's Inn, where the original hangs.
Completion of Goldsborough Hall
Goldsborough Hall was finished in early 1600s. The hall was built on three storeys in red brick with limestone coigns and dressing. Its great oak staircase was lit by two stone mullioned windows. The Library with its fabulous 17th-century oak-panelling has retained its original magnificent painted plasterwork ceiling. The massive stone fireplace in The Dining Room has two over-mantel panels in bas-relief depicting scenes from the Old Testament and predates the hall, from the late 16th century.
1639 Sir Richard Hutton died
With the death of Sir Richard Hutton, the Hall and estate passed to his son, confusingly also called Sir Richard Hutton (knighted by King Charles I in 1625). He was MP for Knaresborough during the 1620s and also High Sheriff of Yorkshire.
Sir Richard Hutton, the younger, was Governor of Knaresborough Castle when the English Civil War broke out and fought on the King's side as a colonel in the Army. He defended the castle for four years and fought alongside the King’s men at the Battle of Marston Moor, near York between the villages of Tockwith and Long Marston in 1644.
1644 Occupation by Parliamentary Army
While Sir Richard was away fighting, the Parliamentary army occupied Goldsborough Hall under Cromwell's cousin Lt Col Edward Whalley, while they destroyed Knaresborough Castle. You can still see the hooks where the soldiers would have hung their hammocks in the Hall's attic. Sir Richard Hutton, the younger was killed in 1645 at the battle of Sherburn-in-Elmet. It is unclear who took over the Hall and the estate at this point though there is evidence of a son, also called Richard, who was involved in a Royalist plot in the 1650s and was imprisoned in Hull. It is known, however, that the estate passed by marriage to the Wharton family and from there onto the Byerley family.
Captain Byerley and the Byerley Turk
The Hall passed through the female side of the family into the Byerley family when the granddaughter of Richard Hutton, Mary Wharton, married her first cousin Robert Byerley. Colonel Robert Byerley acquired a very rare Turkish horse through this union. The stallion became Byerley's war horse and later, in 1690, saved his life at the Battle of the Boyne in Ireland. The Byerley Turk retired to a life of stud at Goldsborough Hall where he covered many mares. This horse is vital to thoroughbred horse history as it is the first of three stallions that make up all thoroughbreds in the world today. This famous horse died in 1706 and is said to have been buried in the grounds beneath a tree. The old pseudo-acacia near the hall and the old stable block could well have marked the spot.
1759 The Lascelles Family
None of Robert and Mary Byerley's children had any heirs and in 1759 the Hall was bought by Daniel Lascelles (whose family later became the Earls of Harewood). With this purchase, Goldsborough Hall moved into a new phase of its life and was extensively remodelled by John Carr of York and Robert Adam during their work on the construction of Harewood House for his brother. The main alteration was the addition of the bays extending upwards towards the roof, with windows on every floor and balustrades at the top. They created a new main entrance to the house facing east. Carr and Adam's features can be seen throughout and include the decorative cornice and marble fireplace in Princess Mary's Drawing Room and decorative columns and cornice in the dining room. The Lascelles' crest of a chained bear's head appears in a stone panel over the front entrance and also on the lead rain-water pipes around the building.
In 1784 Daniel Lascelles died without an heir and the Hall and all of its land passed to his brother, to form part of the then 24,000-acre Harewood estate. For the next 170 years the Hall remained within the Lascelles family, being used as a Dower House, the heirs-in-waiting house, a hunting lodge, or even rented out when not needed.
1922 Home to the Princess Royal
In 1922 HRH Princess Mary, the Queen's aunt married Viscount Henry Lascelles (later the 6th Earl of Harewood) and made Goldsborough Hall their first family home and country residence. The couple lived at Goldsborough before their move to Harewood House in the 1930s following the death of the 5th Earl.
Princess Mary made a number of changes to the house and details can still be seen in the stone fireplace in the dining room and stained glass windows on the staircase depicting the union of the Lascelles and the Royal Family. On the second floor there are also some stained glass windows, which were given by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem on the occasion of the Princess' wedding. In the garden a vista was created to the south with the planting of the walled terrace, the beech avenue centred around Princess Mary's sundial and looking on to the Lime Tree Walk, which was planted by visiting members of the Royal family and surrounded by 50,000 daffodils in the spring. To the south east of the formal garden is a copse of Japanese cherry trees which were a wedding gift from the Emperor of Japan.
1939 Oatlands School
During the Second World War, Oatlands School, (now the site of St Aidan's School), Harrogate was stationed at the Hall. After the war the school remained at the Hall, purchasing it from the Harewood estate in 1951 following the death of the 6th Earl of Harewood. However, when the school’s owners, the Boyer family retired in 1961, the school closed.
1951 The sale of Goldsborough Hall
Princess Mary's husband, the 6th Earl of Harewood, died in 1947, leaving massive death duties. This coupled with the death of his father 17 years earlier and the end of the Second World War, forced the Lascelles family to sell the Goldsborough Estate a few years later, thus ending over 200 years of family ownership. The Goldsborough Estate was sold at auction in 1952, ending over 1,000 years of the estate village. The Hall was privately sold to the Boyers, who ran Oatlands School, the year before.
1961 The Hanson and Smith Families
In 1961 the Hanson family purchased the Hall from the school which had closed down, modernising the building and returning it to a private residence. In 1977, due to ill health, they sold the Hall to developers West & Sons, Ltd. The Hall was briefly converted to a country house hotel that never opened by Elsie Sharp-Day, before being purchased by Russell Stansfield Smith in 1979.
The Smith family lived in the Hall for a few years as a family home before converting it into a nursing home. The home opened in 1983 and become the flagship for the Goldsborough Estates group of nursing homes throughout the UK. The group was sold to BUPA in 1997. In 2003 BUPA closed the nursing home as the Grade II* listed status of the Hall meant it could no longer be kept to modern nursing standards and placed the Hall up for sale.
As buyers were sought for the Hall, it was left derelict for over two years. Without heating or maintenance, nature took over. The boston creeper was almost covering the Hall entirely and coming inside in many places. Squirrels and rats occupied the attic and cellars and the inside of the Hall was also suffering after 20 years as a nursing home. Blocked downpipes were creating leaks causing extensive damage in some areas.
2005 The Oglesby Family and Restoration of The Hall
After 18 months of negotiations the Hall was saved from developers and purchased by local couple Mark and Clare Oglesby, and so began the huge task of restoration -clearing the creeper to allow the re-pointing with lime mortar of 15 miles of brickwork, which is an on-going project, the restoration of a heavily water damaged 1750s Robert Adam ceiling in Princess Mary's bedroom undertaken by Ryedale Plasterers, and the creation of luxury bedroom suites and rooms.
Mark, (the youngest son of the famous salmon angler Arthur Oglesby), and Clare, have returned the Hall once more to a privately owned family residence, where they live with their children Lucy and Charlotte.
With a vision to secure the Hall's future they hoped to find a better use for the building, allowing it to remain a private residence, with its history preserved for the future, so to this end the 16 Bedrooms are now luxury B&B Guest Accommodation, and Goldsborough Hall is one of Yorkshire's most prestigious and exclusive Wedding Venues.
Over the last 400 years Goldsborough Hall has attracted a lot of attention. In piecing together this history we have relied on help from local people. If you have any memories, documents or photographs of the building old or new, we would love to hear from you, so that we can preserve as much of the history of the building as possible