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.
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Denne historien er fra September 22, 2021-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766â68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artistâs first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
