STANWAY HOUSE GLOUCESTERSHIRE

Picture above from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanway_House.


'Stanway House is a Jacobean manor house, built between 1580 and 1640, located near Stanway, Gloucestershire, U.K. Set where the edge of the Vale of Evesham rises to meet the Cotswold Hills, this is very much a rural area. 

The manor was owned by Tewkesbury Abbey for 800 years then for 500 years by the Tracy family and their descendants, the Earls of Wemyss. 

Lord and Lady Neidpath are the present  occupants. The house has 10 acres of  gardens. The house has 36 rooms. The oldest part of the house is the East End Elcho wing, cellars and Audit Room.'

The Tracy family tree shows descent from Emperor Charlemagne, and Tracy's have owned land in Britain since before the Norman Conquest in 1066.

Stanway House is built of golden limestone.  The exquisitely carved gatehouse features cockle shells, a symbol of pilgrims, said to have been adopted by Sir William de Tracy, after his fourteen-year exile to Jerusalem.

The Tracy family crest, above the doors of the gatehouse also shows the cockle shell.

The doors above depict trailing vines, plants, rabbits and birds. Details of the doors and carvings on the gatehouse are below:

The house and grounds have a special atmosphere of peace and tranquility, with an other-worldly
quality.













'Sir William II de Tracy, Knt., (died c. 1189) was feudal baron of Bradninch, near Exeter and Lord of the Manors of Toddington, Gloucestershire and of Moretonhampstead, Devon. He is notorious as one of the four knights who assassinated Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in December 1170...


















The Archbishop's murderers gained their audience with the Pope, who despite their penitence, declared they should be exiled and fight in Jerusalem "in knightly arms in The Temple for 14 years", and then return to Rome....











Roger Hovenden, a 12th century English chronicler,  related further that after their deaths the bodies of the knights were buried at Jerusalem before the door of The Temple, the Templar Round Church built on the site of the Temple of Solomon.



This conforms to the tradition that the murderers were buried under the portico in front of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which was the refectory of the Knights Templar.' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_de_Tracey

'Films have been made at Stanway House such as The Two Ronnies, Afterwards, Silas Marner and The Children of the New Forest.  Edward VII, Queen Mary and J.M.Barrie are known to have stayed at the house in their time.'    http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/domesday/dblock/GB-404000-231000/page/5

Stanway House is also home to the Stanway Fountain, which was opened on 5 June 2004. The single-jet fountain, which rises to over 300 feet (91 m), is the tallest fountain in Britain, the tallest gravity fountain in the world, and the second tallest fountain in Europe, after the 400 feet (120 m) high turbine-driven fountain in Lake Geneva.

The fountain has a 2 inches (5.1 cm) bronze nozzle and is driven from an 100,000-gallon reservoir, 580 feet (180 m) above the canal in which it is situated. The 12 inches (30 cm) diameter pipe which feeds the fountain is 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) long. The fountain is operated by remote control.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanway_House

AVEBURY HOUSE & GARDEN

'Avebury Manor & Garden is a National Trust property consisting of an early 16th-century manor house and its surrounding garden. Avebury Manor & Garden is located in Avebury, near Marlborough, Wiltshire, England.

The manor house is privately occupied, and part is open to the general public. The house was leased and restored by Alexander Keiller who took an intense interest in Avebury henge in the late 1930s.

The garden was completely redesigned in the early 20th century. The topiary and other formal gardens are contained within walls and clipped box, creating numerous "rooms".

In 2011, Avebury Manor became subject of the BBC One programme The Manor Reborn. During the course of the programme, Avebury was refurbished by a group of experts, in collaboration with the National Trust.'

Picture above: Matt made of grasses and lavender plants.                                                            
                                 
















History

The earliest parts of the present house were probably built after Sir William Dunch of Little Wittenham in Berkshire (now Oxfordshire) purchased the estate in 1551. It was some way from most of his lands which centred on Wittenham, but he appears to have purchased it because of an interest in ancient monuments such as the Avebury Stone Circles. 

In the 1580s, he passed it on to his younger son, Walter Dunch. The latter's daughter, Deborah, Lady Moody, grew up at the manor before emigrating to America and founding Gravesend in Brooklyn in 1645. 

The house has had many extensions and changes over the centuries, the final addition to the manor is the West Library. The library was added by the Jenner family who occupied the house in the early 20th Century.












Picture opposite:  Chinese hand-painted wallpaper

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avebury_Manor_%26_Garden

FIRLE PLACE, EAST SUSSEX, ENGLAND

 Firle Place has been the home of the Gage family since the fifteenth century.  Sir John Gage (1479-1556), who built the original Tudor house in 1473, was descended from a Norman Baron who arrived with William I at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.











Sir John Gage held various posts in the court of Henry VIII, including Vice-Chamberlain, Knight of the Garter and Constable of the Tower of London.  He was in charge of the Tower of London when the future Queen Elizabeth I was imprisoned there.








Sir John Gage was a Catholic, and his family was barred from advancement after Henry VIII became head of the independent Church of England.  However his descendent, Sir William Gage (1695-1744) joined the Church of England in 1730.  He set about enhancing Firle Place, by building two long galleries and an external facing of Caen Stone  around the property.

Other well-known members of the Gage family included George Gage, (1572-1638), who was chosen to negotiate on behalf of James I to obtain a papal dispensation to enable his son, Prince Charles, to marry the Infanta of Spain.







 Sir Thomas Gage (1719-1787), joined the armed services and went to America, where he became commander in chief of the British forces.  He was a contemporary of George Washington.  

His actions in America are said to have contributed to the start of the American War of Independence.  He was defeated in a famous battle at Bunker Hill.  Portraits of him wearing the 'red coat' of the British forces hang on the walls of Firle Place.

In the 19th century, another Sir Thomas Gage (1781-1820) is credited with creating the name of the greengage plum. Sir Thomas was a horticulturalist who imported plum trees from Chartreuse, where his brother was a Roman Catholic priest.  The labels for the trees were apparently lost in transit, and the plums became known as greengages after Sir Thomas.

The Gage family continue to live in Firle Place, and the house reopened to the public in 2013, after restoration work.

Village of Firle

'Firle refers to an old-English/Anglo-Saxon word fierol meaning overgrown with oak...During the reign of Edward the Confessor (1042–66) Firle was part of the Abbey of Wilton's estate. 

Following the Norman conquest of England the village and surrounding lands were passed to Robert, Count of Mortain. Half-brother of King William I, Robert was the largest landowner in the country after the monarch. 







The village is mentioned in the Domesday Book, referred to as 'Ferla'. The value of the village is listed as being £44, which was amongst the highest values in the county.

The manor house, the site on which Firle Place now stands, was occupied from the early fourteenth century by the 'de Livet' (Levett) family, an ancient Sussex gentry family of Norman descent who owned the manor...

On the bankruptcy of lord of the manor Thomas Levett in 1440, the owernship passed to Bartholomew Bolney, whose daughter married William Gage in 1472. Following the death of Bartholomew Bolney (d. 1476) without a male heir the seat of Firle Place was passed to William Gage.'

'St Peters Church contains an alabaster effigy of Sir John Gage wearing his Order of the Garter and lying beside his wife Philippa. It also has a John Piper stained-glass window in warm colours, depicting Blake's Tree of Life.' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firle






Well-known residents



'The writer Virginia Woolf visited nearby Lewes in December 1910 and decided to relocate in Firle, where she rented a house and renamed it Little Talland House.  Pointz Hall, a fictional manor from her novel Between the Acts, is believed to be inspired by Firle Place.  

Woolf's sister, painter and interior designer Vanessa Bell, moved to Firle in 1916 taking residence with her live-in lover Duncan Grant in Charleston Farmhouse, which subsequently became a regular haunt of the Bloomsbury Group. Vanessa Bell, her son Quentin Bell, and Duncan Grant are all buried in the churchyard of St Peter's, Firle. 

The Welsh Actor Desmond Wilkinson Llewelyn who famously starred in 17 James Bond films as the character Q ("Major Geoffrey Boothroyd" ) was a resident of Firle when he died in 1999.

Writer Katherine Mansfield, who had close ties with the Bloomsbury Group, also lived in Firle for a brief time. Her landlord was economist John Maynard Keynes, who moved to Firle in 1925 and died there in 1946.'  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firle

Sources: http://www.firle.com/family
http://www.stately-homes.com/firle-place
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firle

HINTON AMPNER MANOR HOUSE

Hinton Ampner House is a country manor with gardens within the parish of Hinton Ampner, near Alresford, Hampshire, England.

The 12 acre garden, set in 80 acres of unspoilt parkland, combines a formal layout with varied and informal plantings of shrubs interspersed with herbaceous plants. 

There are magnificent vistas both within the garden and over the parkland and rolling Hampshire countryside. 

Previously, the parkland came directly up to the house, which was designed to be a hunting lodge.

Picture opposite: Gate to church garden. 

The house and garden are owned by the National Trust and are open to the public. 

www.nationaltrust.org.uk/hinton-ampner.

The garden was created by Ralph Stawell Dutton (1898–1985), the 8th and last Baron Sherborne, starting in 1930, making this a modern 20th century garden.

Photograph of Ralph Dutton courtesy of Wikipedia.www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Stawell_Dutton,_8th_Baron_Sherborne

It was remodelled again by Trenwith Wills and Lord Gerald Wellesley for Ralph Dutton between 1936 and 1939 to his vision of what it would have been like had it been built on its current scale in 1790 - a Georgian country house. 

It was badly damaged by fire in 1960, and restored again much as it had appeared in 1936.

The house contains Ralph Dutton’s fine collection of Regency furniture, Italian paintings and hardstone items.

Ralph Dutton wrote the book "A Hampshire Manor" that chronicles the history of the manor at Hinton Ampner and its gardens. Other books by Ralph Dutton include:

• The English Country House
• The English Garden
• The Land of France - with Lord Holden
• The English Interior
• Wessex
• London Homes

• The Age of Wren
• Normandy and Brittany
• The Victorian Home
• The Chateau of France
• English Court Life

With no direct heirs, he gave the estate to the National Trust, on his death in 1985. 

www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinton_Ampner

www.hintonampner.alresford.org.