August 2020 Advertiser Article

Whenever I do a talk to a local history group or other society there is a fair chance that I will be asked how the Gascoigne family derived their wealth. Well although you wouldn’t know it today one of the main sources of their income resided right where the Garforth Tesco supermarket sits today!… Read the full article

July 2020 Advertiser Article

Following the outbreak of the pandemic due to Covid-19 the distribution of the Advertiser magazine was suspended. I put previous articles on the site here for people to re-visit the information I had written about Parlington and also for those who are outside the circulation area of the magazines.

From July the Advertiser is re-commencing its normal circulation so I have decided to put the articles on here, but with a delay over the printed version to prevent these articles from eclipsing the paper version.… Read the full article

Notes from the Cellar Discovery

Coffee Cup, found in the excavations (2 pieces glued together)

The discovery of the cellar at Parlington prompted me to make the following notes at the time, 2005

He considered the options carefully, “How could it be? No one, and I mean nobody, could have been in here for around seventy or more years, not since the main entrance area was demolished when the Porte Cochère was moved to Lotherton Hall — it’s giving a tingling sensation down my neck, spooky!… Read the full article

Advertiser Mag :: 2020 #22

Bottles discovered in the Excavation of the Cellar

Following on from the previous episodes about the cellar discovery, I should like to resume with a brief story in a light hearted vein of my archaeological work. 

Continuing excavations in the gardens during a warm, sunny and settled early July 2005, the cellar being discovered, then the stone staircase down to it unearthed.… Read the full article

Advertiser Mag :: 2020 #21

Part Two

Cellar, looking back towards the stairway entrance

The destruction of Parlington Hall was not a single event. The hall was largely unoccupied sometime after the death of Colonel Frederick Trench-Gascoigne in 1905, his son Dick and new bride preferring the recently inherited Lotherton Hall. Dick, took the view that the property was really beyond saving.… Read the full article

Advertiser Mag :: 2019 #20

Excavation down to the Cellar beneath the Small Drawing Room

The majority of articles I have written on the topic of Parlington concern historical events,  references to lost heritage or details of the estate landscape and structures. However there is one event even though some fourteen years since, still affords me a moment to marvel at what occurred.… Read the full article

Advertiser Mag :: 2019 #19

Photograph by George Fowler Jones of the folly at Parlington Lake, 1882

We continue from the two previous articles at the lake. It was used by Colonel Gascoigne to great effect for his military manoeuvres, the following is an extract from a sham fight programme of 1864, the wording is a verbatim transcript from the colonel’s own hand:

‘…On the arrival of the Attacking Columns at the Wood near the Lake, they will throw forward a line of Skirmishers which will carefully feel their way through the thicket, and when they observe the enemy on the Island they will open fire, which will be kept up as rapidly as possible for the purpose of keeping down the enemy fire, whilst the attacking columns are launching their boats, and crossing to the Island.Read the full article

Advertiser Mag :: 2019 #18

Photograph by George Fowler Jones, Architect, of Lakeside Cottage 1882

Last time we started our walk along the west side of the lake, taking in the rocky promontory and seeing the planted trees creating a parkland. Now nearing the end of our stroll along the raised walkway we happen upon a timber boat house sitting above a watery dock with rowing boats moored.… Read the full article

Advertiser Mag :: 2019 #17

Giant Sequoia near the former lake

Here is a surprise, Parlington used to have an ornamental lake! During the first half of the nineteenth century the Cock Beck was dammed and with the construction of an elaborate arrangement of sluices, channels and even a waterfall, slowly the Cock Beck, from near the bridge on Long Lane for around a quarter of a mile downstream the low lying ground became a lake.… Read the full article

Advertiser Mag :: 2019 #16

View to the north east, from the Former Aberford Almhouses Tower
View to the north east, from the Former Aberford Almhouses Tower

History is a not an exact business, a perceived view can prevail for long enough and then a newly discovered fact may render all that went before as pure fiction. One such instance in the local area is the building which used to be the Aberford Almshouses, lately an office for a vehicle monitoring service.… Read the full article