Waxwing

Waxwing
"To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour."

From "Auguries of Innocence"

by William Blake

Sunday 30 October 2016

Chastleton House and Garden






Last Thursday B and I visited Chastleton House, a Jacobean manor house, and garden in Oxfordshire - a National Trust property we haven't been to before.

Walter Jones had the house built between 1607 and 1612. For various reasons the family struggled to repair the property over the centuries but his descendants lived there until 1991 when the urgent need for repairs led to the house being sold to the National Heritage Memorial Fund who passed it onto the National Trust for management. The National Trust decided to preserve the house rather than restore and it took six years for the house to be made structurally sound.



You walk down to the house from the car park along a path at the side of a sheep field with glorious views of the Oxfordshire countryside.




The dovecote dates from 1762.




I found the approach and entrance to the house delightfully spooky - very apt with Halloween fast approaching!



St Mary's Church



The house was just about to open and there were queues to get in (I had forgotten it was half term!) so we ate the sandwiches we had brought with us in the courtyard and had a look at the guidebook.



We watched a short introductory film on the property and discovered that Chastleton House was used as the location for Wolf Hall and Putney in the 2015 BBC TV adaptation of Hilary Mantel's book "Wolf Hall" which follows the rise of Thomas Cromwell in the Tudor Court from his lowly beginnings as a blacksmith's son. A cast of 125 actors and a crew of 75 were involved in the filming. Other NT properties used were Montacute House and Barrington Court (Somerset) and Lacock Abbey and Great Chalfield Manor (Wiltshire).




The inevitable Ivy-leaved Toadflax growing up a wall


and a mosaic of tree bark.



The house still looked busy so we had a quick look round the garden first. Seventeenth century walls divided the garden into a series of "rooms". The layout is Jacobean and is a rare survival from an era when gardens were created to show man's mastery over nature! Today the National Trust are in the process of restoring the garden.




Looking towards the croquet lawn with the Wilderness behind. Walter Jones-Whitmore in the Nineteenth Century became known as the "Father of Croquet" and he created the game on the lawns of Chastleton House. He won the first national croquet championships. He was also well known for other inventions - a "clockwork bootlace winder" and an "explosive bell pull" system on trains which stopped them in an emergency.










The Kitchen Garden








The Best Garden - a Jacobean Pleasure Garden consisting of yew and box topiary.





And onwards into the house. You can visit a lot of rooms - parlours, lobby, bedrooms, the Great Chamber, library, museum room, the Long Gallery and the old kitchen but it was very dark in many of the rooms (probably the darkest of any NT property I have visited). No wonder they filmed Wolf Hall here as I seem to remember quite a few of the scenes in the series were very poorly lit! Consequently I couldn't get many photos and the one's I did take were poor - oh, to have a camera that performs well in low light!

Entering the house


19th century stained glass windows in the Great Parlour depicting Charles I and Henrietta Maria


Dining Table (blurred!)




The Fettiplace Room - the tapestry to the left is 17th century and shows the Story of Jacob - the bedcovers date from 1720 -1730



Lovely wooden carvings on the bed in The Cavalier Room. Following the Battle of Worcester in 1651, the owner of Chastleton House (Arthur Jones - "the Cavalier" and supporter of Charles II) fled the battlefield and was hiding in a closet adjoining this room when a group of Parliamentary soldiers arrived at the house demanding a room for the night. Arthur's wife, Sarah, gave Cromwell's soldiers a flagon of ale to which she had added laudanum allowing her husband to escape while the soldiers slept.





The Long Gallery (which is superb) runs the whole length of the North front (a distance of 22 metres) and is the longest surviving barrel-vaulted ceiling of its date in England. This type of room was a status symbol and was used to display ancestral portraits, for the occasional indoor stroll when weather was inclement and in the 19th century badminton was played here. The plaster work was restored 1904/5.













At the West end of the Long Gallery the spandrels have unique painted masks in a Japanese style. The design is so unusual that it is believed they were part of the original scheme and thus very rare. Due to their location either side of the window it is thought they are a type of apotropaic mask (a modified Green Man) placed there to stop evil spirits entering the house. Matching masks may once have also been placed at the East end windows.














We paid a brief visit to the Church before leaving to search for the Four Shire Stone but I will leave that for another post.

16 comments:

Simon Douglas Thompson said...

I could happily live in that dovecote!

Ragged Robin said...

Simon Douglas Thompson - Thanks Simon - agree with you (stunning views from the windows :) )

Rosie said...

Looks a fascinating place. The long gallery is magnificent and the Dovecote and entrance are wonderful too. It does look very spooky for this time of year and I loved Wolf Hall so this definitely has to go on my 'to visit' list, thanks for sharing your visit and photos with us:)

Ragged Robin said...

John Scurr - Thanks so much John. The house is well worth a visit - but I think it is closed now for the Winter so please check NT website for opening times next year. The Rollright Stones are amazing - I went a few years back with my son. Another place I would like to go to is the church at Long Compton (nearby) which has a rather unusual lychgate! I will google Adlestrop (seem to remember it gets a mention in an Edward Thomas poem). It is a beautiful area at times wish I live in South rather than North Warks!

The still life only got posted because it was one of few photos not totally blurred!

Rosie - Thanks so much. Wonderful place to visit but please see my comment above to John as the property is one of those NT places that closes for the Winter! I liked Wolf Hall too - rushed to finish the book before it was on tv but still have "Bringing up the Bodies" to read.

Anonymous said...

Glorious! What a beautiful house. Loved the story about the fleeing soldier!

Ragged Robin said...

Countryside Tales - Thanks so much. Amazing some of the stories you can find in NT guidebooks! :)

Wendy said...

It looks such a fascinating place to visit with some terrific history. I wonder if the soldiers realised they had been 'drugged', I imagine they found out! I did enjoy Wolf Hall and many of the rooms were dark, as you say, but also very atmospheric. Interesting, too, that croquet was created there in the 1800s, I always thought that the game was much older (not that I know much about the game - I've never played it!)

Ragged Robin said...

Wendy - Thanks so much Wendy. It was a very interesting house and I was so chuffed when I found out about Wolf Hall. I think BBC are hoping to make a follow up/second series. I've never played croquet either - I do know he "codified" the game i.e. created rules so perhaps a form of croquet existed before?

Caroline Gill said...

Thank you for your kind comment, RR. What a wonderful dovecote, and the gallery is extraordinarily magnificent. It definitely looks a good place to visit.

Ragged Robin said...

Caroline Gill - Thank you :) Very interesting house - the long gallery was my favourite part :)

Margaret Birding For Pleasure said...

Yet another fascinating place you have shown us both inside and outside. An interesting post

Ragged Robin said...

Margaret Adamson - Thanks Margaret - so glad you enjoyed :)

The Quacks of Life said...

I've been to Chastleton and the church a couple of times..... the house is fascinating

BTW I regularly stay in Long Compton the Red Lion is lovely :) and have NEVER been to the church despite saying I must go!!

Ragged Robin said...

Pete Duxon - Thanks Pete - I loved the house - so many rooms to visit. I bet your camera coped with the dark better than mine!! :)

You've never been to Long Compton church despite staying nearby!!! - don't believe it!! :))) But thanks for the tip re: The Red Lion - I might be able to bribe David to go with the promise of a pub lunch! :) I have a cousin who lives in Hook Norton - another place I must visit! Nice church there too I believe!

Rohrerbot said...

The bedroom is nice. The garden area looks especially lovely with all of the vine growth around the building walls.

Ragged Robin said...

Chris Rohrer - Thanks Chris - the bedroom was rather impressive :) The gardens were beautiful - would like to go in the summer! - Didn't explore as much of grounds as I would have liked as I had only worn pumps (silly me!) and the grass was soaked with rain/dew! Ended up with very wet feet!