Report - Great Tew Manor House, Oxfordshire - May 2012

Derphouse · Jun 20, 2012

This place has been seem time and time again i know, but its definately a place you have to try to visit!

For the 45 minutes or so it took to go round the whole place it was definately woth the drive and is probably in my top 3 if not actually my favourite explore as its such a stunning building....

Historys been covered plenty of times but here's just a bit of it anyway

G T was settled in the Anglo-Saxon era. Ã†lfric of Abingdon held the manor of G T by 990 and became Archbishop of Canterbury in 995. Ã†lfric died in 1005, leaving G T to Saint Alban's Abbey. In 1049-1052 the abbey leased G T
William the Conqueror granted the manor to his step-brother Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, and it was recorded amongst Odo's estates in the Domesday Book in 1086.
T G Park was created before the latter part of the 16th century.
Sir Lawrence Tanfield, Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, bought G T estate in 1611 from Edward Rainsford. He deprived the villagers of timber, causing some of the cottages to fall into disrepair. Tanfield enclosed part of G Ts lands in 1622. However, most of the parish's common lands were not enclosed until Parliament passed an Enclosure Act for G T in 1767.0s Lucius gathered a circle of writers and scholars at G T including Abraham Cowley, Ben Jonson and Edmund Waller. During the English Civil War the young Viscount fought on the Royalist side and was killed in 1643 at the First Battle of Newbury. G T remained in the Cary family until the death ofAnthony Cary, 5th Viscount of Falkland in 1694.
Viscount Cary lived in a large manor house which seems to have been built in or before the early part of the 17th century and seems to have been extended in the latter part of the 17th century. It was demolished in about 1800 but outlying structures from about 1700 including its stables, dovecote and stone gatepiers survive.In 1780 and 1793 G T estate was bought by George Stratton, who had made a fortune in the East India Company. He died in March 1800 and was succeeded by his son George Frederick Stratton. The manor house had evidently fallen into disrepair, as the Strattons lived in a smaller Georgian dower house slightly to the south of it and had the manor house demolished in about 1803. In 1808 George Frederick Stratton engaged the Scots botanist and garden designer John Loudon, who laid out north and south drives in G T Park and planted ornamental trees in and around the village, which today enhance its picturesque appearance.
In 1815-1816 Matthew Robinson Boulton, the son of the manufacturer Matthew Boulton of Soho, Birmingham, bought GT Estate. In 1825 Boulton added aGothic Revival library to the east end of the house, and in the middle of the 19th century the Boulton family added a large Tudor style section to the west end. G T remained with the Boulton family until M.E. Boulton died without heirs in 1914.

The estate now belongs to the Johnstone family, and the manor is partially lived in and partially undergoing repairs... the estate itself is beautiful, one of the most idyllic places i've ever been!!

anyway enough lusting after a rich country life!! visited with Mrtoby....

Pictures