Overwater Hall

The house was built for Joseph Gillbanks, who had made his money in the Jamaica, in 1840 and was originally known as Whitefield House. He incorporated an older 18th Century building which seems to have been built by John Gaff in about 1785. The house was sold by the Gillbanks family in 1929 to Frederick Gatty, a textile merchant. After Gatty's death in 1951, it was bought by Charles de Courcy-Parry, who had achieved notoriety when he shot Percy Toplis, a convicted criminal, in 1920 and who went on to become a journalist who wrote under the name of Dalesman. The house was acquired by a Mr & Mrs Henry Hays in 1957, and then became a hotel owned by Mr Monte Green in 1967: it has changed hands…

It appears that John Gaff (1746-1794) acquired Whitefield in about 1781 when it was advertised for sale. The advertisement implies that there was a fairly modest dwelling there at this time which was owned by Mungo Simpson. A newspaper notice shows that John was living at Whitefield by 1788. He died in 1794 and shortly after his son Thomas advertised the property but it appears that he did not sell it. By now the house seems to be very substantial as the notice of 1797 describes it as follows. Thomas Gaff owned Whitefield until 1814 when he advertised it for sale. The sale notice describes the whole estate. It was bought by Joseph Gillbanks.