A Cotswold dream

A medieval house, developed in the 18th century and again by Clough Williams-Ellis in the 1930s answers the popular ideal of a Cotswold home. Jeremy Musson reports

- Jeremy Musson

CORNWELL Manor is one of the most admired Classical country houses in the Cotswolds. Halfhidden in a small valley close to Chipping Norton, the house commands attention on the approach, with terraced gardens and a parkland rolling away gently to the southeast towards a series of lakes. The diminutive church of St Peter’s, which is Norman in origin, can be glimpsed among the trees to the east and the house itself has evolved in stages from its medieval courtyard form. While the serene southern entrance elevation has a mid-Georgian character, the roof, courtyard, and kitchen wing immediately suggest 16th- and 17th-century work. The combination of elements is highly satisfactory; the house was admired by Joseph Skelton in The Antiquities of Oxfordshire (1823), when he noted that the village had ‘little worthy of notice, excepting the handsome mansion and estate of the Penystone family’.

Cornwell Manor, home of the Ward family since 1959, was the seat of the Annesley family in the 16th century, and probably before that. The estate passed to Sir Thomas Penystone, 1st Bt, in the 1620s. A lawyer and MP, Sir Thomas was High Sheriff of Oxfordshire in 1637, and his descendants remained in occupation until the 19th century. A phase of a building must have followed his acquisition of the estate—this probably includes much of the built structure, including the roof, with many of the windows and the west staircase turret being dated to post-Restoration alterations. The appearance of the principal entrance range was the result of mid-18th century work.