William Gascoigne born about 1218 at Harewood
He married a Matilda (Jane) Gawkethorpe, daughter of John Gawkethorpe of Gawthorpe about 1248 at Harewood.
He died in 1270
The old seat of the Gawkthorpes, of Gawthorpe, was a residence when Herewode (Harewood) was what its name indicates. Its name is associated with all the interest, glamour, and romance that should pertain to this one time feudal hall.
The men of Gawthorpe, who took their name from their seat, were of some renown as soldiers, having fought on the battlefields of France and elsewhere.
Eventually, their estate passed to the Gascoigne’s’ by marriage of Matilda, daughter and co-heiress (with her sister Alicia, married to John Connall) of John de Gawkthorpe, or Goldthorpe of Gawkethorpe, and granddaughter of Henry de Gauketorp, by ……his wife, daughter and heiress of …….Hillum born 1217, to William Gascoigne, in the time of Edward I, and here the family were located for a period of four hundred years.
(It has been traditionally rumoured within the Gascoigne Family that this William Gascoigne saved Matilda Gawthorpe from drowning and in view of this action John Gawthorpe offered him the hand of his daughter Matilda in marriage.)
Gawthorpe Hall is quaintly described thus in 1656:-
“most of the walles built with good stone, and all the houses covered with slate, and a great part of that new building; four rooms in the ould building, all waynscotted; five large rooms in the new building, all wainscotted likewise, and collored like walnut tree; the materials of which house, if sould, would raise 500£ at least. To this belongeth a park, in former tymes stored with deer; a park like place it is, and a brook running through the middle of it, which turnes four payer of millstones att two milles. The stank or pond at Gawthorpe is well stored with trout, roch, gudgeon, and eyles. There is at Gawthorpe a garden and orchards about 8 acres in compasse, fenced round with high stone wall, the garden toward the north side hath 4 walles lying one above the other, both the garden and orchard well planted with great store of fruit trees of severall kindes, which with the dovecote and the hill before the doore Mr Fox hath in lieu of 8£ part of his waiges yearly.”