Beschreibung:

(of Hawksworth Hall, near Guiseley, parish of Otley, West Yorkshire) [Extensive archive of papers and documents relating to the Hawksworth Estate in Menston and other properties elsewhere in Yorkshire and Lancashire], manuscripts, documents, correspondence, including numerous medieval charters, many with wax seals, most extremely well preserved, 16th - 19th century indentures and estate correspondence, surveys of land, numerous receipts, auction catalogue of sale of the estate in 1955 etc., many on vellum, some in wrappers of The Thoresby Society dating from the 1930s, folds, some browned and with tears, most in good condition, in a remarkably good state of preservation, housed in two tin deed boxes: "EL Gaunt Hawksworth Papers", v.s., v.d., thirteenth - twentieth centuries (qty). *** 700 years of continuous documentation of one village in the West Riding of Yorkshire. The Hawkesworth family are said to be descended from one of William the Conqueror's commanders, killed at the battle of Hastings, with the estate being gifted to his son. More certainly, while they appear to have had a small estate at Hawksworth, at least from the twelfth century, it was not until a Walter Hawkesworth married into the Ward family did the Hawkesworths become the paramount landowners in the area. An older house was known to have existed on the site, but the present building was begun in the early seventeenth century, the oldest part with a of 1611. During the Civil War, Sir Richard Hawkesworth, a firm ally of Sir Thomas Fairfax was arrested at Hawksworth Hall and imprisoned at York until the city surrendered in 1644. A little later in the same century Sir Walter Hawkesworth, created a baronet in 1669, made several alterations to the house, and there are further dates of 1664 and 1667 on the chimneys. Hawkesworth was briefly involved in national affairs during the 1660s when in correspondence with George Villiers, second duke of Buckingham, who was attempting to establish a power base in West Yorkshire. Apart from his own extensive holdings in the county, Buckingham married Mary, the daughter of General Sir Thomas Fairfax who had a house in the village. Hawkesworth's letter-book cum commonplace book is included in this archive. Alterations continued to be made to the house until the eighteenth century when in 1796 Frances Fawkes of Farnley Hall, near Otley, died and left all of his to Walter Ramsden Beaumont Hawkesworth (art collector, 1769-1825), who had married a near relation. He took the surname Fawkes and went to live at Farnley Hall. The Hawkesworth family retained ownership of the house but ceased to live in it after 1825 and for the remainder of the century it was let to tenants. Later, it came into the possession of the Gaunt family, who, in 1955 sold the estate at auction. Until recently, the house was used as a school by the charity SCOPE, treating children for cerebral palsy. The school was closed in 1998 and in 2000 was sold. In addition to the longevity of the Hawkesworth family themselves there are at least two families with a remarkable in one place, notably the Roodes or Rhodes family (perhaps several families all taking the same surname, there is an area of the village known as High Royds today) and the Vavasours, both of yeoman stock and both mentioned in early medieval charters and stll mentioned in accounts until well into the eighteenth century. is a village near the towns of Guiseley and Otley in Lower Wharfdale, West Yorkshire. Recorded in the Domesday Book in 1086, Menston is described as being in the Wapentake of Skyrack, being part of the manor of Otley. During the medieval period ownership of much of the village came under the control of the Hawkesworth family through marriage with the Ward family. This is reflected in the large quantity of deeds from this period, relating to every aspect of legal ownership of property in an agricultural economy. Thereafter the Hawkesworth's over the area started to wane, though they ret