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Chastleton House
Chastleton House (/ˈtʃæsəltən/) is a Jacobean country house at Chastleton, Oxfordshire, England, close to Moreton-in-Marsh (grid reference SP2429). It has been owned by the National Trust since 1991 and is a Grade I listed building.
Chastleton House was built between 1607 and 1612, possibly by Robert Smythson, for Walter Jones, who had made his fortune from the law, although his family were originally Welsh wool merchants. The estate was bought in 1602 from Robert Catesby, although his residence was demolished to make way for the new house and no traces of the original building on this spot remain. The house is built of Cotswold stone, around a small courtyard, called the Dairy Court.
Chastleton House is famous for an episode from the English Civil War in which a loyal wife duped (and drugged) Roundhead soldiers to save her husband. Sarah Jewell, granddaughter of the art critic Alan Clutton-Brock and his first wife Shelagh Archer, who died in a road accident in 1936, recalled her childhood reenactments of the scene when visiting her grandfather and his second wife Barbara (née Foy-Mitchell), the last owners of the manor (it having passed on the death of Irene Whitmore-Jones in 1955 to Alan Clutton-Brock, her relative by marriage):
"My sisters and I used to love running around searching for the secret room where Arthur Jones, the grandson of Walter Jones, hid after the Battle of Worcester in 1651. Arthur was a Royalist and had been fighting for Charles II but the troops were defeated by Cromwell and Arthur galloped back to Chastleton with Cromwell's soldiers in hot pursuit. His quick-witted wife, Sarah – my childhood heroine – hid him in the secret closet over the porch and although the pursuing soldiers found his exhausted horse in the stables they couldn't find him. Sarah saved Arthur's life by lacing the soldiers' beer with laudanum and saddling up one of their horses for his escape as the soldiers slumbered. My sisters and I used to lie on the bed in the secret room and pretend we could hear the horses galloping towards us. The bed has now gone and the entrance to the room is barred with one of the National Trust's trademarks: a rope."
Mary Whitmore Jones inherited Chastleton in 1874 at the age of 51 after her youngest brother, Wolryche, died in August. She was thus the first female heir of the estate. Mary was a prolific writer and also the designer, between 1875 and 1898, of the Chastleton Patience Board, subsequently manufactured by J. Jaques & Son. In 1900 she handed over the management of the estate to her nephew, Thomas Whitmore Harris, when he changed his surname to Whitmore Jones and married his first cousin Irene Dickins. They lived in Wimbledon, as the House had been let to the Richardson family by Mary, who moved into Chastleton Rectory as a lodger. She died in 1915. Thomas Whitmore Jones died in 1917, passing the whole estate to his widow Irene, who moved back in the 1930s at the end of the tenancy.
Chastleton House is different from other houses of its type in several respects. It has never had a park with a long, landscaped approach such as many other houses of its era. Rather it was built within an existing settlement, Chastleton village, which provided many of the services for the house which would otherwise have been attached, such as a laundry, a fishpond and a bakehouse.[citation needed]
Secondly, until its acquisition by the Trust in 1991, it was owned by the same family for nearly 400 years. Its treatment by the Trust was similarly unusual, with a policy of conservation (often called 'controlled decay') rather than restoration, enabling visitors to see the house largely as it was when acquired. As a result of the Trust's approach, a large number of the rooms in the house are open to the public.
Of particular note is the Long Gallery, with its barrel vaulted ceiling, with a length 72 feet (22 m). This is an impressive feature surviving from the period, although the gallery at Montacute House in Somerset is of a similar age and at 172 feet (52 m), is the longest in England. Like much of the house, the Long Gallery ceiling has been subject to damage. The neglect of the roof for almost two centuries led to the failing of part of the plaster ceiling in the early 1800s, but it was not repaired until 1904–1905, when two local men were engaged to make good the losses.
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Chastleton House
Chastleton House (/ˈtʃæsəltən/) is a Jacobean country house at Chastleton, Oxfordshire, England, close to Moreton-in-Marsh (grid reference SP2429). It has been owned by the National Trust since 1991 and is a Grade I listed building.
Chastleton House was built between 1607 and 1612, possibly by Robert Smythson, for Walter Jones, who had made his fortune from the law, although his family were originally Welsh wool merchants. The estate was bought in 1602 from Robert Catesby, although his residence was demolished to make way for the new house and no traces of the original building on this spot remain. The house is built of Cotswold stone, around a small courtyard, called the Dairy Court.
Chastleton House is famous for an episode from the English Civil War in which a loyal wife duped (and drugged) Roundhead soldiers to save her husband. Sarah Jewell, granddaughter of the art critic Alan Clutton-Brock and his first wife Shelagh Archer, who died in a road accident in 1936, recalled her childhood reenactments of the scene when visiting her grandfather and his second wife Barbara (née Foy-Mitchell), the last owners of the manor (it having passed on the death of Irene Whitmore-Jones in 1955 to Alan Clutton-Brock, her relative by marriage):
"My sisters and I used to love running around searching for the secret room where Arthur Jones, the grandson of Walter Jones, hid after the Battle of Worcester in 1651. Arthur was a Royalist and had been fighting for Charles II but the troops were defeated by Cromwell and Arthur galloped back to Chastleton with Cromwell's soldiers in hot pursuit. His quick-witted wife, Sarah – my childhood heroine – hid him in the secret closet over the porch and although the pursuing soldiers found his exhausted horse in the stables they couldn't find him. Sarah saved Arthur's life by lacing the soldiers' beer with laudanum and saddling up one of their horses for his escape as the soldiers slumbered. My sisters and I used to lie on the bed in the secret room and pretend we could hear the horses galloping towards us. The bed has now gone and the entrance to the room is barred with one of the National Trust's trademarks: a rope."
Mary Whitmore Jones inherited Chastleton in 1874 at the age of 51 after her youngest brother, Wolryche, died in August. She was thus the first female heir of the estate. Mary was a prolific writer and also the designer, between 1875 and 1898, of the Chastleton Patience Board, subsequently manufactured by J. Jaques & Son. In 1900 she handed over the management of the estate to her nephew, Thomas Whitmore Harris, when he changed his surname to Whitmore Jones and married his first cousin Irene Dickins. They lived in Wimbledon, as the House had been let to the Richardson family by Mary, who moved into Chastleton Rectory as a lodger. She died in 1915. Thomas Whitmore Jones died in 1917, passing the whole estate to his widow Irene, who moved back in the 1930s at the end of the tenancy.
Chastleton House is different from other houses of its type in several respects. It has never had a park with a long, landscaped approach such as many other houses of its era. Rather it was built within an existing settlement, Chastleton village, which provided many of the services for the house which would otherwise have been attached, such as a laundry, a fishpond and a bakehouse.[citation needed]
Secondly, until its acquisition by the Trust in 1991, it was owned by the same family for nearly 400 years. Its treatment by the Trust was similarly unusual, with a policy of conservation (often called 'controlled decay') rather than restoration, enabling visitors to see the house largely as it was when acquired. As a result of the Trust's approach, a large number of the rooms in the house are open to the public.
Of particular note is the Long Gallery, with its barrel vaulted ceiling, with a length 72 feet (22 m). This is an impressive feature surviving from the period, although the gallery at Montacute House in Somerset is of a similar age and at 172 feet (52 m), is the longest in England. Like much of the house, the Long Gallery ceiling has been subject to damage. The neglect of the roof for almost two centuries led to the failing of part of the plaster ceiling in the early 1800s, but it was not repaired until 1904–1905, when two local men were engaged to make good the losses.