Harewood House

This article is about the house in Yorkshire. For the house in Cornwall, see Harewood House, Calstock. For Harewood Park in Herefordshire, see Harewood Park.

Harewood House
Yorkshire West Riding
Harewood House from the garden
Location
Grid reference:	SE31164463
Location:	53°53’49"N, 1°31’38"W
Village:	Harewood
History
	Built 1759-1771
For:	Edwin Lascelles, 1st Baron Harewood by John Carr Robert Adam
	Country house
	Palladian
Information
Owned by:	Harewood House Trust
Website:	harewood.org

Harewood House is a country house in Harewood near Leeds, in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Designed by architects John Carr and Robert Adam, it was built, between 1759 and 1771, for wealthy plantation and slave owner Edwin Lascelles, 1st Baron Harewood. The landscape was designed by Lancelot "Capability" Brown and spans 1,000 acres at Harewood.

There is debate about the proper pronunciation of the name of the house; whether as Harwood or Harewood. In the 18th century, the customary pronunciation (and spelling) was Harwood and this pronunciation for both house and title is used by Harewood House and the Earl of Harewood. The pronunciation "hairwood" is generally used for the village.

Still home to the Lascelles family, Harewood House is a member of the Treasure Houses of England, a marketing consortium for ten of the foremost historic homes in the country. The house is a Grade I listed building and a number of features in the grounds and courtyard have been listed as Grade I, II and II*.

History

Early History

The Harewood estate was created in its present size by the merging of two adjacent estates, thr Harewood Castle estate based on Harewood Castle and the Gawthorpe estate based on the Gawthorpe Hall manor house. The properties were combined when the Wentworths of Gawthorpe, who had inherited that estate from the Gascoignes, bought the neighbouring Harewood estate from the Ryther family. The combined estate was subsequently sold to the London merchant Sir John Cutler in 1696, after whose death it passed to the Boulter family. They in turn sold it to the Lascelles in 1721.

The Lascelles

The Lascelles family claim to have arrived in England with William the Conqueror, during the Norman Conquest. The family had settled in Yorkshire by 1315 as the "de Lascelles". Prosperous members of the county gentry, the Lascelles served as members of parliament and held prominent military positions. In the late seventeenth century the family purchased plantations in the West Indies, and the income generated allowed Henry Lascelles to purchase the estate in 1738; his son, Edwin Lascelles, 1st Baron Harewood, who was a wealthy plantation owner, built the house between 1759 and 1771 to replace Gawthorpe Hall, the original manor house on the estate.

Edwin initially employed the services of John Carr, an architect practising in the northern shires and previously employed by a number of prominent Yorkshire families to design their new country houses. The foundations were laid in 1759, with the house being largely complete by 1765. The fashionable Robert Adam submitted designs for the interiors, which were approved in 1765. Adam made a number of minor alterations to Carr's designs for the exterior of the building, including internal courtyards. The house remained largely untouched until the 1840s when Sir Charles Barry was employed by the Henry Lascelles, 3rd Earl of Harewood, the father of thirteen children, to increase the accommodation. Barry added second storeys to each of the flanking wings to provide extra bedrooms, removed the south portico and created formal parterres and terraces.

Recent history

In 1922, Henry Lascelles, Viscount Lascelles married Mary, Princess Royal, the only daughter of George V. Initially living in the nearby Goldsborough Hall, the couple moved permanently into Harewood House at the death of Henry's father in 1929. The house is the family seat of the Lascelles family, and home of David Lascelles, the eighth Earl.

The house and grounds have been transferred into a trust ownership structure managed by Harewood House Trust and are open to the public for most of the year. Harewood won a Large Visitor Attraction of the Year award in the 2009 national Excellence in England awards.

Harewood houses a collection of paintings by masters of the Italian Renaissance, family portraits by Sir Joshua Reynolds, John Hoppner and Sir Thomas Lawrence, and modern art collected by the 7th Earl and Countess. Changing temporary exhibitions are held each season in the Terrace Gallery. Catering facilities in the house include Michelin-starred fine dining.

As well as tours of the house and grounds, Harewood has more than 100 acres of gardens, including a Himalayan garden and its stupa, an educational bird garden, an adventure playground and the historic All Saints' Church with its alabaster tombs. From May 2007 to October 2008 the grounds contained Yorkshire's first planetarium, the Yorkshire Planetarium.

The Leeds Country Way passes through the Harewood Estate, to the south of the house and lake, as does the route of The White Rose Way.

Popular culture

The artist J. M. W. Turner visited the house and painted the outdoor landscape in watercolour. Rock musician Elton John has performed a concert on the grounds. Since 1996, part of the estate has been developed as the village in the ITV soap opera Emmerdale, which had been based in two different Yorkshire villages since its inception 24 years earlier. The popular show Victoria from ITV starring Jenna Coleman and Tom Hughes has filmed at Harewood House. On 1 July 2006, Irish vocal pop band Westlife held a concert for their Face to Face Tour supporting their album Face to Face. Harewood House was used as a filming location for the upcoming Downton Abbey film in November 2018.Template:Fact The house was the location for BBC's Mary Berry's Country House at Christmas with Mary Berry, broadcast on Christmas Day 2018.

Harewood Bird Garden & Farm Experience

The Bird Garden at Harewood House has a small collection of exotic Bird species, of which more than 5 are listed as vulnerable or endangered by the IUCN. It is a member of the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums (BIAZA).

Birds that can be seen in the garden include Humboldt penguins, Chilean flamingos, Duyvenbode's lories and macaws.

Pictures

• 
  The main entrance to the Park
• 
  The entrance front
• 
  The centre of the entrance front
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  The Entrance Hall
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  The Old Library
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  The China Room (Originally Study)
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  Princess Mary's Dressing Room
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  The East Bedroom
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  Lord Harewood's Sitting Room
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  The State Bedroom
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  The Spanish Library
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  The Library
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  The Yellow Drawing Room
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  The Cinnamon Drawing Room
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  The Gallery
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  The Dining Room
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  The Music Room
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  The Main Staircase
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  A bathroom
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  The Kitchen
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  The terrace and parterre in front of the south facade
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  The Old Stables
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  The lake
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  Harewood House cascade
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  Stepping stones below the cascade
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  The recently preserved Harewood Castle, from the northeast

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Harewood House)

• Harewood House