Gumley is a village and civil parish in the Harborough district, in the county of Leicestershire, England, United Kingdom.
King Æthelbald of Mercia (r.716-757) held a synod at Gumley in that year, at the instigation of Saint Boniface, to answer accusations that he had been oppressing churches and monasteries.
These obligations arguably initiated changes in the land tenurial system of England and eventually led to serfdom.
In the medieval period there were dwellings below the village towards Thornhill Farm, of which little remains apart from some surface irregularities and cobbles on the footpath passing by Too Cottage.
Gumley's population peaked in 1821 when 281 residents were engaged working the land as well as making lace and stockings.
Internally many of the features, including the main staircase with its cast-iron balustrade, appear to date from the earlier 19th century.
South of the hall and opening upon the village street the red-brick stables built round a courtyard were erected by Capt.
Whitmore; the clock tower in the style of an Italian campanile bears the inscription Incorrupta Fides and a weathercock dated 1870.
[3] Cradock laid out the gardens and plantations of Gumley Hall in imitation of the Parc de Saint-Cloud, and in the summer months they became a fashionable resort for the gentry of Leicester, particularly those who came to take the mineral waters of its 'spa', a chalybeate spring found in 1789.
[3] Cradock moved in the literary society of Goldsmith, Johnson, and Burke, and built a theatre at Gumley which was used for amateur productions and by Garrick.
The Cradock-Hartopps let it to Lt.-Col. Dottin Maycock (1816–79) before he moved to Foxton Lodge, and then to Viscount Ingestre (1830–77) before he succeeded as 19th Earl of Shrewsbury in 1868.