Early Life
Alice or Alicia was the daughter of
John de Gunthwaite and
Christiana, his wife.
Fortunes1 has this to say about the Gunthwaite family:
Godfrey Bosville’s Memoirs, speaking of
Alicia de Gunthwaite, the wife of
Thomas de Bosville, observes:
Thus ended in an Heiress ye Ancient family of Gunilthweyth. The old Pedigree names five generations before ye Conquest—four before Roger ante Conquestum. The very name shows its Antiquity ; it is in the old Celtic language of a great part of Europe and of this Island before the Romans or any other Strangers invaded it.
The name means the "thwait"’ or plot of ground of Gunn.
then goes into a short disquisition about Gunthwaite house before continuing:
It was, however, to this actual house that Thomas came courting and from which he won his bride, Alicia de Gunthwaite, in the days of Edward III. Near, too, must then, as now, have been Gunthwaite Lane, a pretty stone-step path among trees leading to the "wishing well"; and at the bottom of the field in front of the house there would then also be the same small lake as now exists, the water of which was considered very beneficial to invalids, so that later it received the name of Gunthwaite Spa, and even now the old custom of visiting it and even bathing in it is still observed on the first Sunday in May, to a certain extent. The water at the well-spring is undoubtedly sulphureous, but in former days this taste was considered to have its origin in silver ore underground, a little of that metal having been found on Gunthwaite land.
At one time "Spa Sunday" at Gunthwaite was a festival attended by thousands of people from all quarters, who sang and danced by the edge of the water and were fed from stalls purposely erected and stocked with festival food. The old oak tree, which till the beginning of this twentieth century stood behind the old Gunthwaite Hall, must have been a glorious tree in the days of Thomas and Alicia. It is supposed to date back to very early times. This famous old tree measured thirty-six feet round the bole; but now it has, sad to say, completely vanished.
...The Gunthwaites appear to have lived at Gunthwaite during the days of Lacis, Byrtons and Darcys, as their tenants, until a charter, now in the British Museum (49 Dl), gave the manor from Henry Darcy to John de Gonnild- thwaite, eighth year of Edward in. This tenancy is shown in a pedigree drawn up in the reign of Henry vn., in which there appears a series of Byrtons and Gunthwaites. The last Byrton was an heiress who married Darcy, whose grandson sold the place to John de Gunnoldthwaite.
Footnotes
[1] The Fortunes of a Family (Bosville of New Hall, Gunthwaite and Thorpe), Lady Macdonald of the Isles, Edinburgh (1927)
