Asthall Manor is a gable

Gable

A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of a sloping roof. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system being used and aesthetic concerns. Thus the type of roof enclosing the volume dictates the shape of the gable...

d Jacobean

Jacobean architecture

The Jacobean style is the second phase of Renaissance architecture in England, following the Elizabethan style. It is named after King James I of England, with whose reign it is associated.-Characteristics:...

 Cotswold

Cotswolds

The Cotswolds are a range of hills in west-central England, sometimes called the Heart of England, an area across and long. The area has been designated as the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty...

 manor house

Manor house

A manor house is a country house that historically formed the administrative centre of a manor, the lowest unit of territorial organisation in the feudal system in Europe. The term is applied to country houses that belonged to the gentry and other grand stately homes...

 in Asthall

Asthall

Asthal or Asthall is a village and civil parish on the River Windrush in Oxfordshire, about west of Witney. It includes the hamlets of Asthall Leigh, Field Assarts, Stonelands, Worsham and part of Fordwells....

, Oxfordshire

Oxfordshire

Oxfordshire is a county in the South East region of England, bordering on Warwickshire and Northamptonshire , Buckinghamshire , Berkshire , Wiltshire and Gloucestershire ....

. It was built in about 1620 and altered and enlarged in about 1916

The house was the childhood home of the Mitford sisters

Mitford family

The Mitford family is a minor aristocratic English family that traces its origins in Northumberland back to the time of the Norman conquest. In the Middle Ages they had been Border Reivers based in Redesdale. The main family line had seats at Mitford Castle, Mitford Old Manor House and from 1828...

.

History

Asthall Manor is a vernacular

Vernacular architecture

Vernacular architecture is a term used to categorize methods of construction which use locally available resources and traditions to address local needs and circumstances. Vernacular architecture tends to evolve over time to reflect the environmental, cultural and historical context in which it...

 two-storey house with attic

Attic

An attic is a space found directly below the pitched roof of a house or other building . Attic is generally the American/Canadian reference to it...

s, built of local Cotswold limestone

Cotswold stone

Cotswold stone is a yellow oolitic limestone quarried in many places in the Cotswold Hills in the south midlands of England. When weathered, the colour of buildings made or faced with this stone is often described as 'honey' or 'golden'....

 on an irregular H-plan with mullion

Mullion

A mullion is a vertical structural element which divides adjacent window units. The primary purpose of the mullion is as a structural support to an arch or lintel above the window opening. Its secondary purpose may be as a rigid support to the glazing of the window...

ed and mullioned-transomed

Transom (architectural)

In architecture, a transom is the term given to a transverse beam or bar in a frame, or to the crosspiece separating a door or the like from a window or fanlight above it. Transom is also the customary U.S. word used for a transom light, the window over this crosspiece...

 windows and a stone-slated roof typical of the area. There are records of a house on the site since 1272 when Richard, 1st Earl of Cornwall

Richard, 1st Earl of Cornwall

Richard of Cornwall was Count of Poitou , 1st Earl of Cornwall and German King...

, owned a house on the site worth 12d

Penny (British pre-decimal coin)

The penny of the Kingdom of Great Britain and later of the United Kingdom, was in circulation from the early 18th century until February 1971, Decimal Day....

. In 1304 the curia

Curia

A curia in early Roman times was a subdivision of the people, i.e. more or less a tribe, and with a metonymy it came to mean also the meeting place where the tribe discussed its affairs...

, garden and fishpond

Fishpond

Fishpond was the code name given to an extension to the British H2S airborne radar system fitted to Royal Air Force Avro Lancaster and Handley Page Halifax heavy bombers during World War II...

 were valued at 10 shilling

Shilling

The shilling is a unit of currency used in some current and former British Commonwealth countries. The word shilling comes from scilling, an accounting term that dates back to Anglo-Saxon times where it was deemed to be the value of a cow in Kent or a sheep elsewhere. The word is thought to derive...

s.
The core of the current building at Asthall was built in 1620
for Sir William Jones on the site of the mediaeval hall

Great hall

A great hall is the main room of a royal palace, nobleman's castle or a large manor house in the Middle Ages, and in the country houses of the 16th and early 17th centuries. At that time the word great simply meant big, and had not acquired its modern connotations of excellence...

.
In 1688 the estate was sold to Sir Edmund Fettiplace; it stayed in branches of the same family for the next 130 years when it was sold to John Freeman-Mitford, 1st Baron Redesdale

John Freeman-Mitford, 1st Baron Redesdale

John Freeman-Mitford, 1st Baron Redesdale PC, KC, FRS , known as Sir John Mitford between 1793 and 1802, was a British lawyer and politician. He was Speaker of the House of Commons between 1801 and 1802 and Lord Chancellor of Ireland between 1802 and 1806.-Background:Born in London, Mitford was the...

 in 1810. During their 116-year tenure the Freeman-Mitfords made many alterations to the house including the installation in 1899 of an electric power

Electric power

Electric power is the rate at which electric energy is transferred by an electric circuit. The SI unit of power is the watt.-Circuits:Electric power, like mechanical power, is represented by the letter P in electrical equations...

 system powered by a water turbine

Water turbine

A water turbine is a rotary engine that takes energy from moving water.Water turbines were developed in the 19th century and were widely used for industrial power prior to electrical grids. Now they are mostly used for electric power generation. They harness a clean and renewable energy...

 fed by the River Windrush

River Windrush

The River Windrush is a river in the English Cotswolds, forming part of the River Thames catchment.The Windrush starts in the Cotswold Hills in Gloucestershire northeast of Taddington, which is north of Guiting Power, Temple Guiting, Ford and Cutsdean...

. The architect Charles Bateman

Charles Bateman

Charles Edward Bateman FRIBA was an English architect, known for his Arts and Crafts and Queen Anne-style houses and commercial buildings in the Birmingham area and for his sensitive vernacular restoration and extension work in the Cotswolds.- Life and career :Bateman was born in Castle Bromwich,...

 altered and enlarged the house in 1916. In 1920 a former barn was converted to a ballroom

Ballroom

A ballroom is a large room inside a building, the designated purpose of which is holding formal dances called balls. Traditionally, most balls were held in private residences; many mansions contain one or more ballrooms...

 1920 and joined to the main house by a cloister. In 1926 the house was sold to Thomas Hardcastle and was purchased by the current owners in 1997 on the death of Hardcastle's son.

The Mitford sisters

David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale

David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale

David Bertram Ogilvy Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale, , was an English landowner and was the father of the Mitford sisters, in whose various novels and memoirs he is depicted.-Ancestry:...

 (2nd creation), father of the Mitford sisters

Mitford family

The Mitford family is a minor aristocratic English family that traces its origins in Northumberland back to the time of the Norman conquest. In the Middle Ages they had been Border Reivers based in Redesdale. The main family line had seats at Mitford Castle, Mitford Old Manor House and from 1828...

, inherited Asthall Manor on the death of his father in 1916 and in 1919 moved his family there from Batsford Park

Batsford

Batsford is a village and civil parish in the Cotswold district of Gloucestershire, England. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 99. The village is about 1½ miles north-west of Moreton-in-Marsh...

. The youngest of the Mitford sisters Deborah, later Duchess of Devonshire

Deborah Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire

Deborah Vivien Cavendish, Dowager Duchess of Devonshire DCVO , née The Hon. Deborah Freeman-Mitford is the youngest and last surviving of the six noted Mitford sisters whose political affiliations and marriages were a prominent feature of English culture in the 1930s and 1940s...

, was born at Asthall in 1920. Her sister Diana

Diana Mitford

Diana Mitford, Lady Mosley , was one of Britain's noted Mitford sisters. She was married first to Bryan Walter Guinness, heir to the barony of Moyne, and secondly to Sir Oswald Mosley, 6th Baronet, of Ancoats, leader of the British Union of Fascists; her second marriage, in 1936, took place at the...

 had an appendectomy on the spare-bedroom table.
The Mitfords were great socialites, and Asthall hosted frequent hunting

Fox hunting

Fox hunting is an activity involving the tracking, chase, and sometimes killing of a fox, traditionally a red fox, by trained foxhounds or other scent hounds, and a group of followers led by a master of foxhounds, who follow the hounds on foot or on horseback.Fox hunting originated in its current...

 and shooting

Shooting

Shooting is the act or process of firing rifles, shotguns or other projectile weapons such as bows or crossbows. Even the firing of artillery, rockets and missiles can be called shooting. A person who specializes in shooting is a marksman...

 weekend parties, regular guests included Clementine Churchill, Frederick Lindemann and Walter Sickert

Walter Sickert

Walter Richard Sickert , born in Munich, Germany, was a painter who was a member of the Camden Town Group in London. He was an important influence on distinctively British styles of avant-garde art in the 20th century....

.
Nancy Mitford

Nancy Mitford

Nancy Freeman-Mitford, CBE , styled The Hon. Nancy Mitford before her marriage and The Hon. Mrs Peter Rodd thereafter, was an English novelist and biographer, one of the Bright Young People on the London social scene in the inter-war years...

's fictional Alconleigh in The Pursuit of Love

The Pursuit of Love

The Pursuit of Love is a novel by Nancy Mitford, first published in 1945. It is the first in a trilogy about an upper-class family in the period between the wars...

is based largely on Asthall, and family life there is described in Jessica Mitford

Jessica Mitford

Jessica Lucy Freeman-Mitford was an English author, journalist and political campaigner, who was one of the Mitford sisters...

's autobiographical Hons and Rebels

Hons and Rebels

Hons and Rebels is an autobiography by political activist Jessica Mitford which describes her aristocratic childhood and the conflicts between her and her sisters Unity and Diana, who were ardent supporters of Nazism...

. Redesdale had never planned to make Asthall Manor a permanent home, and in 1926 the family moved in to nearby Swinbrook

Swinbrook

Swinbrook is a village on the River Windrush, east of Burford in Oxfordshire, England. The village is in the civil parish of Swinbrook and Widford.-History:...

 House which Redesdale had had built on the site of a derelict farm.

Garden

The garden at Asthall Manor extends to 6 acres (2.4 ha) and is listed as a Grade II Historic Garden

National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens

In England, the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of special historic interest in England provides a listing and classification system for historic parks and gardens similar to that used for listed buildings. The register is managed by English Heritage under the provisions of the National...

.
It was created for the current owners of Asthall by Julian and Isobel Bannerman (best known for their work for Prince Charles at Highgrove House) and includes traditional gardens of herbaceous border

Herbaceous border

A herbaceous border is a collection of perennial herbaceous plants arranged closely together, usually to create a dramatic effect through colour, shape or large scale. The term herbaceous border is mostly in use in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth...

s and lawn

Lawn

A lawn is an area of aesthetic and recreational land planted with grasses or other durable plants, which usually are maintained at a low and consistent height. Low ornamental meadows in natural landscaping styles are a contemporary option of a lawn...

s, contemporary parterre

Parterre

A parterre is a formal garden construction on a level surface consisting of planting beds, edged in stone or tightly clipped hedging, and gravel paths arranged to form a pleasing, usually symmetrical pattern. Parterres need not have any flowers at all...

s and areas of wild woodland

Woodland

Ecologically, a woodland is a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade. Woodlands may support an understory of shrubs and herbaceous plants including grasses. Woodland may form a transition to shrubland under drier conditions or during early stages of...

 and wildflower

Wildflower

A wildflower is a flower that grows wild, meaning it was not intentionally seeded or planted. Yet "wildflower" meadows of a few mixed species are sold in seed packets. The term "wildflower" has been made vague by commercial seedsmen who are interested in selling more flowers or seeds more...

s running down to water-meadow

Water-meadow

A water-meadow is an area of grassland subject to controlled irrigation to increase agricultural productivity. Water-meadows were mainly used in Europe from the 16th to the early 20th centuries...

s by the River Windrush

River Windrush

The River Windrush is a river in the English Cotswolds, forming part of the River Thames catchment.The Windrush starts in the Cotswold Hills in Gloucestershire northeast of Taddington, which is north of Guiting Power, Temple Guiting, Ford and Cutsdean...

.

Asthall today

Asthall Manor remains primarily a private family home, although the ballroom is occasionally used for functions and Asthall Manor's garden provides the setting for "On Form", a biennial exhibition of contemporary sculpture

Sculpture

Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...

 in stone as well as small outdoor musical events.