Dorton House is a Jacobean

country house An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a town house. This allowed them to spend time in the country and in the city—hence, for these peopl ...

near the village of

Dorton Dorton (or Dourton) is a village and civil parish in the Aylesbury Vale district of Buckinghamshire. It is in the western part of the county, about north of the Oxfordshire market town of Thame. Manor The village toponym is derived from the Ol ...

Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-ea ...

, England. It was built between 1596 and 1626. It currently houses Ashfold School, an independent preparatory school. Dorton House is a

Grade I listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

History

Historic England Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked wit ...

gives a build date for the house of the early 17th century, noting a

datestone A datestone is typically an embedded stone with the date of engraving and other information carved into it. They are not considered a very reliable source for dating a house, as instances of old houses being destroyed and rebuilt (with the old da ...

for 1626 on an external

soffit A soffit is an exterior or interior architectural feature, generally the horizontal, aloft underside of any construction element. Its archetypal form, sometimes incorporating or implying the projection of beams, is the underside of eaves (to ...

. Elizabeth Williamson and

Nikolaus Pevsner Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (1 ...

, in their revised ''Buckinghamshire'' volume of the ''

Buildings of England The Pevsner Architectural Guides are a series of guide books to the architecture of Great Britain and Ireland. Begun in the 1940s by the art historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, the 46 volumes of the original Buildings of England series were published b ...

'', give a rather later date of 1675. Both attribute the house to

Sir John Dormer Sir John Dormer (18 October 1556 – 10 March 1626) was an English landowner and politician who sat in the House of Commons in two periods between 1604 and 1622. Biography Dormer was the son of William Dormer of Thame, Oxfordshire and gr ...

. The house was sold in 1783 to Sir John Fletcher and remained in his family until 1928 when it was sold to Major Michael Beaumont who served as a British soldier,

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

for

Aylesbury Aylesbury ( ) is the county town of Buckinghamshire, South East England. It is home to the Roald Dahl Children's Gallery, David Tugwell`s house on Watermead and the Waterside Theatre. It is in central Buckinghamshire, midway between High Wy ...

Justice of the Peace A justice of the peace (JP) is a judicial officer of a lower or ''puisne'' court, elected or appointed by means of a commission ( letters patent) to keep the peace. In past centuries the term commissioner of the peace was often used with the sa ...

and Deputy Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire. The

Royal London Society for the Blind The Royal London Society for Blind People (RLSB) was a UK charity that existed for 175 years to help blind and partially sighted young people in London and the South East through a blend of sports, education, and creative and developmental service ...

purchased the house in 1939, as a school, before they moved to Wildernesse at

Dorton House Dorton House, formerly known as Wildernesse, is a Grade II listed Georgian mansion house in Seal, Kent, near Sevenoaks; until 2013 it was used as the headquarters for the Royal London Society for the Blind (RLSB) and as housing for the blind an ...

Seal Seal may refer to any of the following: Common uses * Pinniped, a diverse group of semi-aquatic marine mammals, many of which are commonly called seals, particularly: ** Earless seal, or "true seal" ** Fur seal * Seal (emblem), a device to impr ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

, in 1955. In 1955 the house was purchased by James Harrison and turned into Ashfold preparatory school. Ashfold School is a co-educational independent day and boarding preparatory school for about 270 pupils aged from 3 to 13 years. Actor brothers

Edward Edward is an English given name. It is derived from the Anglo-Saxon name ''Ēadweard'', composed of the elements '' ēad'' "wealth, fortune; prosperous" and '' weard'' "guardian, protector”. History The name Edward was very popular in Anglo-Sa ...

and

James Fox William Fox (born 19 May 1939), known professionally as James Fox, is an English actor. He appeared in several notable films of the 1960s and early 1970s, including '' King Rat'', ''The Servant'', ''Thoroughly Modern Millie'' and ''Performanc ...

attended the school when it was near

Haywards Heath Haywards Heath is a town in West Sussex, England, south of London, north of Brighton, south of Gatwick Airport and northeast of the county town, Chichester. Nearby towns include Burgess Hill to the southwest, Horsham to the northwest, Crawl ...

in West Sussex.

Architecture and description

The house is in a Jacobean Style and is in a horseshoe shape. The house was built from bricks made from local clay fired at the bottom of Brill Hill.

References

Sources

* *

External links

Ashfold School
official website
Dorton House
official website {{DEFAULTSORT:Dorton House Buckinghamshire Grade I listed buildings in Buckinghamshire Grade I listed houses Country houses in Buckinghamshire Jacobean architecture in the United Kingdom