Daylesford House is a Georgian

country house image:Blenheim - Blenheim Palace - 20210417125239.jpg, 300px, Blenheim Palace - Oxfordshire An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a Townhou ...

near Daylesford, Gloucestershire, England, on the north bank of the

River Evenlode The River Evenlode is a tributary of the Thames in Oxfordshire. It rises near Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire, in the Cotswold Hills and flows south-east to the Thames, its valley providing the route of the southern part of the Cotswold Li ...

near the border with Oxfordshire, east of

Stow-on-the-Wold Stow-on-the-Wold is a market town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in Gloucestershire, England, on top of an 800-foot (244 m) hill at the junction of main roads through the Cotswolds, including the Fosse Way (A429), which is of Roman ...

and west of

Chipping Norton Chipping Norton is a market town and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Cotswolds in the West Oxfordshire district of Oxfordshire, England, about south-west of Banbury and north-west of Oxford. The United Kingdom Census 2011, 201 ...

. The village of Daylesford lies nearby to the west, Adlestrop to the north, Cornwell to the east, and Kingham to the south, The house has been listed Grade I on the

National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, ...

since 1960, and its gardens were subsequently Grade II* listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens in 1986. The grounds include an

orangery An orangery or orangerie is a room or dedicated building, historically where orange and other fruit trees are protected during the winter, as a large form of greenhouse or conservatory. In the modern day an orangery could refer to either ...

in late 18th century Gothic style, which has a separate Grade I listing. The stable block and ice house in the grounds are also separately Grade II listed.

History

The former manor house of Daylesford was acquired in 1788 by

Warren Hastings Warren Hastings (6 December 1732 – 22 August 1818) was a British colonial administrator, who served as the first governor of the Presidency of Fort William (Bengal), the head of the Supreme Council of Bengal, and so the first governor-gener ...

, former

Governor-General of India The governor-general of India (1833 to 1950, from 1858 to 1947 the viceroy and governor-general of India, commonly shortened to viceroy of India) was the representative of the monarch of the United Kingdom in their capacity as the emperor o ...

, along with an estate of , for £54,000. It became the family home where he lived with his wife and step son. Warren Hastings was descended from the Hastings family that had owned the manor from the 12th to 14th century, and then again from the 15th century until it was sold in 1715 by Hastings's grandfather to a merchant from Bristol, Jacob Knight. Knight began the construction of a new house in about 1730, but the new house remained unfinished when both Knight and his eldest son John died in 1788. Hastings had previously offered twice the value of the land to get the house back, and he finally acquired the estate in 1788 from a younger son Thomas Knight. The shell was remodelled by Hastings from around 1788 to 1793 to designs by

Samuel Pepys Cockerell Samuel Pepys Cockerell (15 February 1753 – 12 July 1827) was an English architect. He was a son of John Cockerell, of Bishop's Hull, Somerset, and the elder brother of Sir Charles Cockerell, 1st Baronet, for whom he designed the house he is ...

, architect to the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...

, to create a broadly Neoclassical house with some features inspired by Indian architectural styles. Cockerell took the Indian motifs further at Sezincote House, built for his brother Sir Charles Cockerell nearby. After his death in 1818, Hastings was buried at St Peter's church in Daylesford nearby, and his widow Marian Hastings died there in 1837, and then by her son (Hastings' stepson) Sir Charles Imhoff until he sold it in 1853 to stockbroker Harman Grisewood. During Grisewood's period of ownership, alterations were made to the interiors and exteriors by

Robert Trollope Robert Trollope was a 17th-century English architect, born in Yorkshire, who worked mainly in Northumberland and Durham. His work includes: * Eshott Hall, about 1660 * Capheaton Hall, 1667-8 * Cliffords Fort, North Shields, 1672 * Callaly Cas ...

. After Grisewood's death in 1874, the house was acquired by R. Nichol Byass, and then it was sold in 1884 to Charles Edward Baring Young. Daylesford House was occupied by US soldiers in the Second World War and left in a dilapidated state. The house and estate were acquired by

Esmond Harmsworth, 2nd Viscount Rothermere Esmond Cecil Harmsworth, 2nd Viscount Rothermere (29 May 1898 – 12 July 1978), was a British Conservative politician and press magnate. Early life Harmsworth was the third son of Harold Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere, who had founded th ...

in 1946. He restored the house with the help of the architect Philip Jebb and the interior decorator John Beresford Fowler. It was subsequently acquired by Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza de Kászon for £600,000 in the late 1970s. Thyssen hired the Italian designer Lorenzo Mongiardino to redecorate the interior at a cost almost equal to the purchase price of the house. Thyssen subsequently estimated that he had spent £3 million on Daylesford, having renovated houses on the estate and increased the surrounding landholding to 12,000 acres. Thyssen described the expenditure as "...endless, and the weather was appalling, so we only went in the winter so at least we knew what to expect". It was sold in 1986 to Sir Anthony Bamford. Bamford is a major financial donor to the Conservative Party and in July 2022 hosted the wedding celebrations of the then

prime minister A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...

Boris Johnson Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (born 19 June 1964) is a British politician and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He wa ...

and his wife Carrie at the house. Daylesford remains a private home and is not open to the public. Its gardens are occasionally opened under the National Garden Scheme.

House

The exterior of the house exhibits a plain style of Neoclassicism, based on

Palladio Andrea Palladio ( , ; ; 30 November 1508 – 19 August 1580) was an Italian Renaissance architect active in the Venetian Republic. Palladio, influenced by Roman and Greek architecture, primarily Vitruvius, is widely considered to be one ...

, with some fussy French details. The house has an "H" plan, with a central block of three stories, and wings of two stories, constructed from yellowish Stanway limestone

ashlar Ashlar () is a cut and dressed rock (geology), stone, worked using a chisel to achieve a specific form, typically rectangular in shape. The term can also refer to a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, a ...

s. The south front was originally the main entrance, with canted bays at either end, reached by a drive that swept past the main west front. The main front was originally to the west, at the centre of which is a projecting semicircular bay, with four Ionic pillars and French Neoclassical garland swags around the architrave, topped by a shallow dome with pointed

Coade stone Coade stone or ''Lithodipyra'' or ''Lithodipra'' () is stoneware that was often described as an artificial stone in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It was used for moulding neoclassical architecture, neoclassical statues, a ...

finial, and wings projecting to either side. The oriental-inspired dome predates the publication of architectural aquatints of Thomas Daniell and William Daniell in 1796, and the domes of Sezincote and Brighton Pavilion. The main entrance was moved to the east front in the 19th century, with the addition of a late 19th century extension with projecting Tuscan porch and portico, and a flat roof. The interior is decorated in a plain Classical style, with two fireplaces by Thomas Banks and one by John Bacon with Indian motifs. Hasting's original decoration scheme made frequent use of gold and crimson, and displayed his collection of oriental-style furniture. The main rooms face south and west, with views downhill over the park, and the services are located on the wood-shrouded northern side. A circular boudoir in the dome, facing west, was the main state bedroom, has a high domed ceiling, and a segmental bay. A curved stable block is located near the house. The house has been listed Grade I on the

since 1960.

Gardens

Hastings also laid out the gardens and grounds, which were landscaped by John Davenport. To the west of the house is a lawn with views across a

ha-ha A ha-ha ( or ), also known as a sunk fence, blind fence, ditch and fence, deer wall, or foss, is a recessed landscape design element that creates a vertical barrier (particularly on one side) while preserving an uninterrupted view of the lan ...

to the park, and there are terraces to the south and east. The main formal approach was from Daylesford village to the south-west, through a park of approximately , with many mature trees and areas of woodland, two lakes (one of which has an island, formerly the site of a decorative temple), and a walled kitchen garden. A garden of approximately surrounds the house, with mainly 19th century planting. Some of the stonework in the grounds may be derived from the Grey Geese of Adlestrop, a collection of stones (possibly a

Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

monument) found on the top of Adelstrop Hill nearby. The gardens are listed at Grade II* listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens in 1986. A stable block and icehouse in the grounds have separate Grade II listings.

Orangery

About east of the house is an orangery which was constructed in 1789–90. Sources offer contradictory suggestions as to the architect. David Verey and Alan Brooks, in their ''Gloucestershire I: The Cotswolds'' volume in the Pevsner Buildings of England series, revised and reissued in 2000, suggest John Davenport.

Historic England Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked with prot ...

's listing for the house's park and garden follows this, suggesting that the attribution to Davenport is "almost certain .. The Historic England listing record for the orangery, however, makes no mention of Davenport, and suggests it is "probably" by Cockerell. In Gothick style, the seven-bay building is constructed from ashlars, with tall pointed windows facing south over the park, a pediment above the central three bays, round wings at either end, and battlements with pinnacles. Many details are based on the pattern books of

Batty Langley Batty Langley (''baptised'' 14 September 1696 – 3 March 1751) was an English garden designer, and prolific writer who produced a number of engraved designs for " Gothick" structures, summerhouses and garden seats in the years before the mid-1 ...

Footnotes

References

Sources

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External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Daylesford House Cotswold District Country houses in Gloucestershire Gothic Revival architecture in Gloucestershire Grade I listed houses in Gloucestershire Grade II* listed parks and gardens in Gloucestershire Houses completed in 1793 Neoclassical architecture in England Orangeries