Foxcote House is an 18th-century detached
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 ...
in the village of
Ilmington
Ilmington is a village and Civil parish#United Kingdom, civil parish about north-west of Shipston-on-Stour and south of Stratford-upon-Avon in the Cotswolds in Warwickshire, England, Warwickshire, England. The population of the civil parish ta ...
, near
Shipston-on-Stour
Shipston-on-Stour is a town and civil parish in the Stratford-on-Avon District in southern Warwickshire, England. It is located on the banks of the River Stour, Warwickshire, River Stour, points of the compass, south-southeast of Stratford-up ...
in
Warwickshire
Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It is bordered by Staffordshire and Leicestershire to the north, Northamptonshire to the east, Ox ...
, England. It has been a Grade II* listed property since September 1952.
The house has 11 bedrooms, five bathrooms, with a suite and two dressing rooms. It also has a large hall with a mezzanine gallery. The front of Foxcote House contains large gardens.
The house was constructed c.1740, its design has been attributed to Edward Woodward. It was traditionally the family seat of the Canning family; ten generations of the Canning family resided at the house until the death of Robert Canning in 1848.
Foxcote House was occupied by a private school before its purchase in the 1960s by Christopher Boot Holman, an heir of the pharmaceutical retail company
Boots the Chemist. The Holmans restored the house and it was sold by them in 1997 to the American billionaire
Les Wexner
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. The 1997 sale price has been quoted as £3 million or £8 million.
[
The Wexners have refurbished the house and have purchased surrounding land to restore its estate. The Wexners are financial supporters of the ]Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs over 1,000 staff and opens around 20 productions a year. The RSC plays regularly in London, Stratf ...
(RSC), and in a video tour of Foxcote House made for the international company of the RSC, it is stated that at the time of the Wexner's purchase, the top floor of the house had been sealed off for 50 years and the house was in a state of "complete dilapidation". In an interview with the ''Daily Telegraph'', Sarah Holman, the daughter of Christopher Boot Holman, said that the Wexners "have spent a fortune on new windows and they have done lots of marvellous things" but that they had also turned the house into a "...glorified shooting lodge. It is not what I would have called fabulous inside."[
]
References
{{Use British English, date=April 2025
Grade II* listed buildings in Warwickshire
Grade II* listed houses
Country houses in Warwickshire
Houses completed in 1740
1740 establishments in England