HAREWOOD, a parish, in the West riding of
the county of YORK, comprising the townships
of Dunkeswith and Weeton, in the upper division of
the wapentake of CLARO, the township of East Keswick,
in the lower division, and the townships of Alwoodley,
Harewood, Weardley, Wigton, and Wike, in the upper
division of the wapentake of SKYRACK, and containing 2348 inhabitants,
of which number, 849 are in the township of Harewood,
6 miles (W. S. W.) from Wetherby. The living
is a discharged vicarage, in the archdeaconry and
diocese of York, rated in the king's books at £ 14. 1.10.,
endowed with £37 per annum private benefaction, and
£200 royal bounty, and in Ihe patronage of the Parishioners
and Mr. Wheeler alternately. The church,
dedicated to All Saints, was erected in the reign of
Edward III., upon the site of an edifice supposed to have
been built soon after the Conquest: it contains stately
monuments to the memory of several of the ancient possessors
of Harewood, and one to the memory of the celebrated
Sir William Gascoigne, Knt., Lord Chief Justice,
in the reign of Henry IV., the upright judge, who, for an
insult offered to the dignity of the bench, committed the
Prince of Wales (afterwards Henry V.) to prison. There
is a place of worship for Wesleyan Methodists. The
parish is thought to contain coal, though none is obtained.
A charter for a market on Monday Was granted to Lord
Strafford about 1633, also a fortnight fair in Summer and
two other fairs; the latter only are continued, and are
held on the last Monday in April, and the second Monday
in October. On the acclivity of a hill, at the foot
of which winds the river Warf, are the noble ruins of
a castle, supposed to have been built about the time of
the erection of the original church, by one of the
Romellis; it afterwards came into the family of Lascelles,
and was neglected as a residence by Edwin
Lascelles, Esq., who, before he was raised to the peerage
in 1790, fixed upon a spot on the opposite side of the
hill, and there built the present splendid seat of the family,
at an expense stated to exceed £ 100,000. Harewood
gives the titles of baron and earl to the family ol
Lascelles.