University Archives
Londesborough Estate (Denison/Burlington families)
Prior to the ownership of Lord Albert Denison from 1850 the Londesborough estates had passed down through the Clifford family from the fifteenth century and the Boyle family from the seventeenth century. The Cliffords also owned Skipton castle and John de Clifford was a leading Lancastrian who was killed just before the battle of Towton in 1461. Henry Clifford was friendly with Henry VIII and was made 1st Earl of Cumberland. The title became extinct in 1643 and the Londesborough estate was inherited by Elizabeth Clifford, who had married Richard Boyle (1612-1698), the 2nd son of the 1st Earl of Cork and 1st Earl of Burlington. The estate papers largely begin with this generation of the family and it was Elizabeth and Richard Boyle who reconstructed the Elizabethan house. Richard Boyle (1694-1753) was the last Earl of Burlington to own Londesborough. He was a patron of the arts and an architect and landscaper, who rebuilt his own houses (including Londesborough in the 1730s) and was responsible for building the assembly rooms at York. When he died the estates were inherited by his daughter, Charlotte, who was married to William Cavendish, 4th Duke of Devonshire. After his wife's premature death, Londesborough was neglected and the house was demolished in 1818 and replaced with a 'Jacobethan' hunting lodge in 1839. The estates were briefly held by George Hudson, the railway entrepreneur, who built the York to Market Weighton railway line and then sold in 1850 to Lord Albert Denison (d.1860). Albert Denison was the son of the Marchioness of Conyngham, daughter of a Leeds banker and mistress of George IV (he was born Albert Conyngham). He became Earl of Londesborough in 1850 and was succeeded to the estates by his son, William Henry Forester Denison (1834-1900), who was Liberal MP for Beverley and then Scarborough and on joining the Conservatives was made 1st Viscount Raincliffe and 1st earl of Londesborough. He inherited £2 million in stocks and shares and a yearly rental roll of £100,000, but had to sell Grimston Park in 1872 to pay off debts. His son, Francis Denison (1864-1919), leased Londesborough in 1909 and in 1923 the estate was sold to Dr and Mrs Ashwin. The collection contains around 8000 items including medieval manorial records for Brayton, Eastoft, Selby and Thorpe Willoughby, medieval account rolls and title deeds of Selby Abbey (for which there is a complementary collection catalogued as DWE) and estate papers for Londesborough from the late seventeenth century. [DDLO; DDLO(2)]
Related papers are held at the East Riding of Yorkshire Archives Service [DDLO].