Orde-Powlett family, Barons Bolton

The fortunes of the Paulet (or Powlett) family were established by the soldier Sir John Paulet (fl. c.1497-1501), who married Constance, heiress of Thomas, Baron St John of Basing (d. 1428) and acquired his property at Basing (Hampshire) and elsewhere. His son, the statesman William Paulet (d. 1572), created Marquess of Winchester in 1551, and received extensive grants of monastic land in Hampshire, Wiltshire and elsewhere, including the priory of the Austin Friars in London. His son, the 2nd Marquess, received Dorset lands (Sherborne Castle, Hooke, etc ) formerly belonging to the Duke of Somerset (d. 1551) and acquired property in Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset and Wiltshire by marriage to Elizabeth, daughter and co-heir of the second Baron Willoughby de Broke (d. 1521). (For other Willoughby estates, inherited by the grandaughter of the 2nd Baron Willoughby de Broke, see Grevile, Earls Brooke and Earls of Warwick; Verney, Barons Willoughby de Broke). Further Hampshire estates (Kingsclere, Nether Wallop, Frobury, Hackwood, etc) were purchased in the 16th century. Basing House was demolished in the Civil War and Hackwood became the family seat.

The northern estates of the Paulet family were acquired through the marriage in 1654 of the 6th Marquess of Winchester (created Duke of Bolton in 1689) to Mary Scrope, daughter of the 11th Baron Scrope (created Earl of Sunderland in 1627). She was heiress to her father's Bolton Castle (Yorkshire, North Riding) estate, part of the extensive property acquired by the Scrope family in the north of England in the late middle ages. (Further Scrope estates passed to two other daughters of the Earl of Sunderland).

By a settlement of 1763 the 5th Duke of Bolton provided that his estates in Hampshire (centred on Hackwood) and in the North Riding of Yorkshire (Bolton Castle) should pass to his illegitimate daughter Jean Powlett, who inherited them on the death of the 6th and last Duke of Bolton in 1794. In 1778 she had married the politician Thomas Orde (1740-1807), younger son of John Orde of Morpeth and East Orde (Northumberland), who adopted the additional surname Powlett in 1795 and was created Baron Bolton in 1797. Their son the 2nd Baron sold considerable Hampshire property in the early 19th century, the purchasers including Alexander Baring (later Baron Ashburton) and the second Marquess of Buckingham, and Bolton Hall near Leyburn (Yorkshire, North Riding) became the family seat. The remaining Hampshire property was alienated in 1936, when Baron (later Viscount) Camrose bought Hackwood, and in 1946, when Basing was sold.

The Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Wiltshire estates of the 6th Duke of Bolton, who died without male issue, passed at his death to his daughters and their husbands. By an act of Parliament in 1863 they were divided between their descendants the 7th Earl of Sandwich and the 4th Duke of Cleveland (see Vane, Barons Barnard) and were largely sold between 1880 and 1919.

Estates in 1883: Yorks NR 15,413 acres, Hants 13,808 acres, total 29,221 acres worth £27,552 a year.