Great Tew Manor

Great Tew was settled during the Anglo-Saxon era and the original manor house was occupied in 990 by Ælfric of Abington.  (Typing that gives me chills. The 990 part.  Ælfric doesn't do so much for me.) Ælfric willed the manor to Saint Alban's Abbey.  In turn, the abbey leased the manor in 1049  "to Tova, widow of Wihtric, in return for 3 marks of gold and an annual render of honey; lease, for her lifetime and that of her son, Godwine, of land at Cyrictiwa, with reversion to St Albans."  

Bouncing forward a few centuries, (skipping over William the Conquerer, his step brother Odo, and a few others) Sir Lawrence Tanfield bought the manor in 1611.  Evidently Sir Lawrence was not a very kind "overlord" though since he deprived his villagers of lumber which caused some of the cottages to fall into disrepair.  He also enclosed part of the common lands which meant that the villagers could no longer travel or forage from them.  Boo! According to the Britain Express, "He was reviled locally for his high-handed interference in local affairs, and had a reputation for greed and corrupt practices in office. Indeed, for two centuries after his death, Burford residents gleefully burned an effigy of Lord Tanfield each year."

tomb of Sir Laurence Tanfield, Burford, Oxfordshire

Time passed, people lived and died and the manor house was eventually demolished around 1800.  (However, the original stables and dovecote still survived.)  George Fredrick Stratton owned the property by then.  (His father, who made his fortune in the East India Tea Company, purchased the property in 1783.)  The Stratton family lived in the dower house and George Fredrick invested his time (and money) in building a largely unsuccessful model farm, including a lodge with a paper roof.  The extravagant farm was designed by JC Louden, a famed Scottish botanist and garden designer. Loudon also founded a short-lived 'agricultural college' at Great Tew in 1808, but it seems to have amounted to little more than a few pupils staying at his house.  "Loudon's more enduring impact, however, was on the landscape of the northern part of the estate, where North and South Drive, now partly overgrown, were built as farm roads, avoiding awkward gradients by following the contours of the northern valley; the Lodge ponds were created to provide power to the threshing mill, and some progress, though probably less than Loudon claimed, was made in draining the fields and grubbing up hedges. Above all Loudon was responsible for tree planting, particularly on Cow hill and along the new roads, where exotic trees still flourish. Though Loudon's planting program was not completed, he achieved much in a short time. When Stratton sold the estate in 1815, it contained well over 120 acres of woodland, excluding that outside the parish."

Matthew Robinson Boulton purchased the Estate from George Fredrick and continued to add onto the Dowager House, which had become the main house.

Great Tew Manor House

Self taught English architect Thomas Rickman and his apprentice, Thomas Fulljames were largely responsible for the additions to the manor, including the library.

I wonder what the little door at the bottom of the wall is.

ornate woodwork

Servants quarters?

love the light pouring through

amazing that this is preserved.

I'm going to continue to delve into the history behind this house.  I'd love to know who visited, who grew up here, did they hold fancy balls here, what was it like growing up here?