Original Manor

1086 – Herlavestune (estate or farm or Herelaf) mentioned in Domesday Book.
1174 – William de Mortimer built first church on property.
1227 – Owned by Mortimer barons of Attleborough and Scoulton in Norfolk. The Mortimers were connected with the Wigmore family but died out with Sir Robert Mortimer in 1387.
1340 – Edmund de Surynford built “old” manor house.
John O’Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, son of Edward III, used as a hunting lodge – manor was fortified by a moat.
14th and 15th centuries – owned by Thisnblebys, Ricards and Bluets. In 1587, John Bluet, of a Somerset family, died owning the Manor which had come to him by marriage with the daughter of Thomas Ricard of Harlaxton.

1619 – Daniel de Ligne, married to Elizabeth de la Fontaine, was a Flemish refugee from religious persecution, purchasing Harlaxton for £8000. With his armorial bearings being confirmed in 1619, Daniel de Ligne was knighted by James I in 1624 and was High Sheriff of Lincolnshire. He lived until 1656. He was succeeded by his son Erasmus de Ligne,  but his grandson and great-grandson Cadwallader Glynne both died without children in 1730-31.
1738 – George Gregory, lawyer for the family that left Harlaxton with no apparent heir, married Anne Orton (a descendent of Daniel de Ligne’s sister Elizabeth Tyrwhitt), whom Gregory claimed was a newly discovered heir. George Gregory became lord of the manor. George Gregory was High Sheriff of Nottingham in 1748 and died in 1750.
1775 – Original manor reported desolate, although still containing considerable collection of art.
In 1831 Salvin commissioned his assistant, James Deason, to create a series of sketches of the Old Manor which are now held in the RIBA collection. https://www.architecture.com/image-library/ribapix.html?keywords=harlaxton%20old%20manor

 

Holme, Charles (Ed.) 1915. Old English mansions. The Studio : London. Available online: https://openlibrary.org/books/OL7096463M/Old_English_mansions [Accessed  June 2014]

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