Nuneham House is an eighteenth century villa in the Palladian style, set in parkland at Nuneham Courtenay in Oxfordshire, England. It is currently owned by Oxford University and is used as a retreat centre by the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University. In September 2016 the house and a thousand acres of surrounding parkland and farmland, including the village of Nuneham Courtenay, were put up for sale in three separate lots for a total of £22 million. [1]
The house was built in 1756 on the site of an earlier property and surrounding village by Stiff Leadbetter for Simon Harcourt, 1st Earl Harcourt. Interiors were designed by James Stuart and Lancelot "Capability" Brown designed the landscaped grounds. It is a Grade II* listed building.
Lord Harcourt demolished the original village of Nuneham Courtenay in the 1760s in order to create a landscaped park around his new villa, removing the existing village in its entirety, rebuilding it and diverting the main Oxford to London road (now the A4074). Oliver Goldsmith wrote of the demolition of the village and destruction of its farms to clear land to become this wealthy man's garden [2] in his poem The Deserted Village . Published in 1770, it expresses a fear that the destruction of villages and the conversion of land from productive agriculture to ornamental landscape gardens would ruin the peasantry. [2] Goldsmith gave his Deserted Village the pseudonym "Sweet Auburn", but did not disclose the real village to which it refers. However, he did indicate it was about 50 miles (80 km) from London and it is widely believed to have been Nuneham Courtenay. [2]
The house was altered by Henry Holland in 1781–2, including the heightening of the wings. In 1789, the 2nd Earl Harcourt re-erected the Carfax Conduit building in a prominent position in the park. It had had to be moved from Carfax in the centre of Oxford, where it was an obstacle to traffic. [3]
At about the same time, a church with a wide tower with a domed roof was built about a mile north of the house.
In 1904, after the death of Sir William Harcourt, Nuneham House passed to his son, Lewis Harcourt, known by many as "Loulou". He had recently married Mary Ethel Burns, a niece of American financier and banker, J. P. Morgan. The estate inherited by the young couple was in need of major renovation, which they could not afford. Morgan established a £52,000 ($260,000) line of credit at his London bank for his niece, which he told her did not need to be repaid. The Harcourts used these funds to renovate the old buildings and grounds. [4]
During the Second World War, Nuneham House and its surrounding parkland was requisitioned by the Air Ministry and became RAF Nuneham Park, a P.R.I.U. or photographic reconnaissance interpretation unit. Photographs taken by aircraft from RAF Benson and other airfields over enemy territory were examined here by RAF officers as well as small contingents from the Army, Royal Navy and the USAAF. Nissen huts and other, larger buildings were erected adjacent to the mansion, including a camp cinema which villagers were welcome to attend. The RAF station continued after the war in the same role until the mid-1950s, when the added buildings and roadways were demolished and the estate handed back to the Harcourt family, who sold it to Oxford University.
The Harcourt Arboretum, part of the tree and plant collection of the University of Oxford Botanic Garden, occupies part of what were the grounds of Nuneham House.
The landscaped parkland and pleasure gardens surrounding the house are listed Grade I on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. [5] [6]
The estate includes the privately owned, two-storey Old Rectory, built in 1759 on the northern boundary by the first Earl. It was Grade-II listed in 1963 as part of the "Nuneham Courtney Park and Garden". [7] [6]
Oxfordshire is a ceremonial county in South East England. The county is bordered by Northamptonshire and Warwickshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the east, Berkshire to the south, and Wiltshire and Gloucestershire to the west. The city of Oxford is the largest settlement and county town.
Blickling Hall is a Jacobean stately home situated in 5,000 acres of parkland in a loop of the River Bure, near the village of Blickling north of Aylsham in Norfolk, England. The mansion was built on the ruins of a Tudor building for Sir Henry Hobart from 1616 and designed by Robert Lyminge. The library at Blickling Hall contains one of the most historically significant collections of manuscripts and books in England, containing an estimated 13,000 to 14,000 volumes. The core collection was formed by Sir Richard Ellys. The property passed into the care of the National Trust in 1940.
Simon Harcourt, 1st Viscount Harcourt, PC of Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire, was an English Tory politician who sat in the English and British House of Commons from 1690 until 1710. He was raised to the peerage as Baron Harcourt in 1711 and sat in the House of Lords, becoming Queen Anne's Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain. He was her solicitor-general and her commissioner for arranging the union with Scotland. He took part in the negotiations preceding the Peace of Utrecht.
Petworth House in the parish of Petworth, West Sussex, England, is a late 17th-century Grade I listed country house, rebuilt in 1688 by Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset, and altered in the 1870s to the design of the architect Anthony Salvin. It contains intricate wood-carvings by Grinling Gibbons. It is the manor house of the manor of Petworth. For centuries it was the southern home for the Percy family, earls of Northumberland.
Claremont, also known historically as 'Clermont', is an 18th-century Palladian mansion less than a mile south of the centre of Esher in Surrey, England. The buildings are now occupied by Claremont Fan Court School, and its landscaped gardens are owned and managed by the National Trust. Claremont House is a Grade I listed building.
William Sawrey Gilpin was an English artist and drawing master, and in later life a landscape designer.
Elvaston Castle is a stately home in Elvaston, Derbyshire, England. The Gothic Revival castle and surrounding parkland is run and owned by Derbyshire County Council as a country park known as Elvaston Castle Country Park. The country park has 200 acres (0.81 km2) of woodlands, parkland and formal gardens.
Edward William Vernon Harcourt DL JP was an English naturalist and Conservative politician.
Harcourt Arboretum is an arboretum owned and run by the University of Oxford. It is a satellite of the university's botanic garden in the city of Oxford, England. The arboretum itself is located six miles south of Oxford on the A4074 road, near the village of Nuneham Courtenay in Oxfordshire, and comprises some 150 acres. Professor Simon Hiscock is the Horti Praefectus (Director) of the botanic garden and arboretum.
Nuneham Courtenay is a village and civil parish about 5 miles (8 km) SSE of Oxford. It occupies several miles close to the east bank of the River Thames.
The Swinton Estate is a large privately owned estate in North Yorkshire, England. It comprises some 20,000 acres (8,100 ha) of countryside in the Nidderdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, extending 10 miles (16 km) west from the River Ure near Masham. The estate includes Swinton Park, the seat of the Danby family and of the Cunliffe-Lister family, an English country house in Swinton near Masham. It is set in 200 acres (81 ha) of parkland, lakes and gardens. The house is a Grade II* listed building, and now operates as the 42-bedroom Swinton Park Hotel.
Croome Court is a mid-18th-century Neo-Palladian mansion surrounded by extensive landscaped parkland at Croome D'Abitot, near Upton-upon-Severn in south Worcestershire, England. The mansion and park were designed by Lancelot "Capability" Brown for the 6th Earl of Coventry, and they were Brown's first landscape design and first major architectural project. Some of the mansion's rooms were designed by Robert Adam. St Mary Magdalene's Church, Croome D'Abitot that sits within the grounds of the park is now owned and cared for by the Churches Conservation Trust.
Albury Park is a country park and Grade II* listed historic country house in Surrey, England. It covers over 150 acres (0.61 km2); within this area is the old village of Albury, which consists of three or four houses and a church. The River Tillingbourne runs through the grounds. The gardens of Albury Park are Grade I listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.
Stiff Leadbetter was a British architect and builder, one of the most successful architect–builders of the 1750s and 1760s, working for many leading aristocratic families.
The Carfax Conduit was a water conduit that supplied the city of Oxford with water from 1610 until 1869.
Marsh Baldon is a village and civil parish about 5 miles (8 km) southeast of Oxford in Oxfordshire. Since 2012 it has been part of the Baldons joint parish council area, sharing a parish council with the adjacent civil parish of Toot Baldon. The 2011 Census population is 310.
Tusmore is a settlement about 5+1⁄2 miles (9 km) north of Bicester in Oxfordshire. It is the location of the Tusmore country house and estate.
Old All Saints Church, or Harcourt Chapel, is a redundant Church of England church near the village of Nuneham Courtenay, Oxfordshire, England. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II* listed building, and is under the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. The church is southwest of the village, in the grounds of Nuneham House overlooking the River Thames, some 6 miles (10 km) southeast of Oxford.
Linton Park, formerly Linton Place or Linton Hall, is a large 18th-century country house in Linton, Kent, England. Built by Robert Mann in 1730 to replace a much earlier building called 'Capell's Court', the estate passed through the ownership of several members of Mann's family before coming into the Cornwallis family. The house was enlarged to its current size in 1825.
George Simon Harcourt, 2nd Earl Harcourt, styled Viscount Nuneham until inheriting the title of Earl Harcourt in 1777, was an English politician, patron of the arts, and gardener.
