the harewood estate was created in its present size by the merging of two adjacent estates, the 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.