WHEN Pusey House came to the market in 2010, the selling agent called it 'one of England's most beautiful houses'. Even allowing for the well-known enthusiasm of estate agents, if you stand on the broad terrace admiring the house's sublimely elegant mid18th-century stone façade, then turn to the view south across tree-framed lawns and lake to the far ridge of the Berkshire Downs, it is hard not to agree. It would seem that the elegance of the house has always been the inspiration for its setting; from the original 18th-century landscape to the garden that was substantially created by Michael and Nicolette Hornby after they purchased Pusey in 1935, as well as the garden that has been rejuvenated since 2015 by the present owners, Richard and Triinu Perlhagen.
Pusey's history is reputed to stretch back more than 1,000 years to the reign of Canute, who, so a charming story suggests, awarded the Pusey family the land east of Faringdon in the Vale of White Horse. The King was in the area when a Pusey boy warned him of an ambush. Canute rewarded him by giving the boy a horn and saying he owned all the land over which, when he blew the horn, it could be heard.
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