October 2020 Advertiser Article

Recently acquired family papers delivered to Lotherton Hall, bequeathed by a Gascoigne relative, are providing new insights into, and filling many gaps in the family story. One very glaring absence is the complete lack of any photographs of Colonel Frederick Trench-Gascoigne, or his wife Isabella. But at least Isabella and her sister Elizabeth feature on a drawing and later engraving, titled ‘Peris of the North’, clearly from their early adulthood. Nothing was known of the appearance of Frederick, except in a painting of the family gathered in the Drawing room at Parlington from 1852 by Nancy Raynor, but not really anything that could be considered as a likeness. However whilst searching through these newly acquired papers I came across two photographs of an elderly gentlemen, one a close up, and the second of the same man sitting on a chair in the gardens at Parlington. I identified the gardens by the simple fact that a large tree in the background has a very bulbous base at its roots, and is a tree which is still to be found in the, what is now woodland, at Parlington; a large larch tree! A fine specimen but beyond public access, sitting in the cherry plantation to the east of the hall.

The strange thing is that Parlington had a photographic studio, one of a collection of single storey structures winding round the eastern end of the hall; the conservatory, a picture gallery, a circular fernery, and off a long curved corridor back to the main entrance area, a small room titled photographic room. Colonel Gascoigne was also noted as a keen photographer, he had exhibition displays of his pictures in Leeds Town Hall in the later years of the nineteenth century. Also their chosen architect, and I think its fair to say, friend, who worked extensively on Gascoigne projects, George Fowler Jones was a keen photographer and member of the Royal Photographic Society. Whilst Jones’s photographs have largely survived those of the Gascoignes’ have been lost. Also local anecdotal information suggests that Isabella was also interested in photography, amongst her other known interests; stained glass work, and creating complex patterns and shapes using a lathe – an interest which prompted her to produce a book on the topic. The lathes at Parlington will be the focus of a future article as they are an intriguing subject.

Here is the newly discovered photograph of Colonel Frederick Trench-Gascoigne sitting on a chair in the garden. Behind him beyond the flower beds is the larch tree with the large mound at its base. [Photo courtesy of Wingfield Collection, Lotherton Hall]

The second image is part of a plan of the hall from 1885. To the right is the main entrance and porte cochére, to the left the circular fernery. The long corridor connecting the different structures to the house. The photographic room is within the red square off the gallery.