Goldsborough Village
Goldsborough is a quiet, picturesque village near the town of Knaresborough and Harrogate in North Yorkshire.
Standing Stone
The Lascelles gates are still the present entrance to the village
In the graveyard behind Goldsborough Church adjoining the Hall, is a Standing Stone that is believed to be a place where people came to trade and pay taxes in ancient times and dates back to 60AD.
The Goldsborough Hoard
Evidence of early settlement in the village comes from a Viking hoard which was discovered in 1859 during construction outside the north wall of Goldsborough Church. Coins and artefacts dating from 700 to 1050 were found in a leaden chest including fragments of Viking brooches and arm-rings, together with 39 coins. It forms one of the largest collections ever discovered in the UK and is now held at the British Museum in London.
Domesday Survey
In the Domesday Survey of 1086 Goldsborough is referred to as “Godenesburg”, there is some fine Norman architecture in St Mary’s Church in the village.
Goldsborough Village
Richard de Goldsburgh took the name of the village and his family held the manor for over four hundred years. Effigies in the church include one of a Richard de Goldsburgh who accompanied Edward I against William Wallace in 1298.
Construction of Goldsborough Hall
In the 16th century there was a family feud and the thatched manor house situated at the far end of the village was burnt down. In 1599 Sir Richard Hutton, a London lawyer, originally from Cumbria, bought out all the claimants to the land and built Goldsborough Hall on its current site. The village remained tenanted to each subsequent owner of the Hall for the next 350 years.
King George V and Queen Mary attended the christening of Princess Mary's son. This picture is taken on the steps of Goldsborough Hall
Owned by the Lascelles Family
Daniel Lascelles, whose family eventually became the Earls of Harewood, bought Goldsborough Hall and the estate in the 1750s and the entrance gates to the village date back to this time. The Lascelles family used the Hall as the heirs in waiting’s family home or as a Dower House.
Home to a Princess
The village became famous in the 1920s when HRH Princess Mary, the Queen’s aunt, came to live at Goldsborough Hall following her marriage to Viscount Lascelles. In 1923, hundreds of visitors turned out when the Princess’s son George was christened in the village church with King George V and Queen Mary in attendance.
In the 1950s, following the death of Princess Mary’s husband, the 6th Earl of Harewood, the village was put up for sale. In 1952, villages were able to purchase their own homes for the first time in 1,000 years.
Goldsborough Village today
Goldsborough remains a quiet and peaceful village, set in the heart of the Yorkshire countryside. The village has a country pub and a delightful 13th-century church.
