Cotswold Houses (1)

Tuis Nisan 27, 2022

This corner of England where I live is known as “The Cotswolds”. The etymological origins of the word Cotswolds comes from the words “cots” meaning stone sheep shelters and “wolds” meaning rolling hills. The area is rich in oolite limestone from which most of the houses are built. There are many great houses, some owned by the National Trust, but most are still in the ownership of generations of the same family. Many of these houses are open to visitors during the late spring months until mid-autumn. They are a rich source of architecture and full of works of art. Built in the lovely Cotswold honey coloured stone and situated in glorious countryside, they are a joy to visit.

Stanway House

The medieval fish pond survives from the days when it was a source of food for Tewkesbury Abbey.

Stanway House is a prime example of the many beautiful homes. It is an outstanding Jacobean Manor house, owned by Tewkesbury Abbey for 800 years then for 500 years by the Tracy family and their descendants, the Earls of Wemyss. The Tracy's, very unusually, claimed descent from Charlemagne, and were almost unique in England for having owned land since before the Norman Conquest.

courtesy blindwing

courtesy EricHardy

The gatehouse is a gem, one of the best pieces of architecture in the Cotswolds. It was built for Sir Richard tracy in 1630. The lodges, either side of the gateway, have narrow bay windows and the whole is topped by shaped gables crowned with the Tracy scallop shells. The archway has fluted columns either side.

The tithe barn is medieval built in 1370 for Tewkesbury Abbey. It has a stone roof supported by massive base cruck timbers. It is a fine building and now used for events and as a theatre.

Through the arch the rear view of the gatehouse can be seen.

This gabled west front is Elizabethan being the oldest part of the house and includes the great hall. The great hall is extraordinarily light having an enormous full height bay window which you can see through this arch.

The glory of the Stanway Baroque water garden is the single-jet fountain in the canal. It rises to over 300 ft, making it the tallest fountain in Britain, and the tallest gravity fountain in the world.

View from each end of the water canal

View half way along the water canal where it is just possible to make out a pyramid folly built in 1735 at the top of the hill, from which a cascade used to descend.
No pictures allowed indoors. Amongst the many wonderful things to see I will just mention two. One of the bedrooms is decorated in William Morris wallpaper, which was actually hung by the great man himself. I resisted the temptation to touch it. These bedroom walls are adorned with Rossetti and Burne-Jones paintings and sketches.
In the families everyday room, there are two cabinets holding a priceless collection of Chelsea china plates from the period 1752-1756. They are decorated with botanically accurate plants, copied from an edition of Philip Miller's, The Gardener's Dictionary. Philip Miller was a Botanist, and Head Gardner at the Chelsea Physic garden during that mid 18th century period. The china is known as "Hans Sloane" flowers and vegetables as Philip Miller sketched many of his illustrations in Sir Hans Sloane's garden. Two plates in particular caught my eye, which although different, both featured pea pods, closed and open, along with their flowers and leaves. If I could have had one thing it would have been that pair of plates. They would have complimented my pea pod collection perfectly.