Faringdon House is a Grade I listed 14,510 square feet house in

Faringdon Faringdon is a historic market town in the Vale of White Horse, Oxfordshire, England, south-west of Oxford, north-west of Wantage and east-north-east of Swindon. It extends to the River Thames in the north; the highest ground is on the Ridg ...

, Oxfordshire, England. It was built in about 1770–1785 for the

Poet Laureate A poet laureate (plural: poets laureate) is a poet officially appointed by a government or conferring institution, typically expected to compose poems for special events and occasions. Albertino Mussato of Padua and Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch ...

Sir Henry James Pye. It became the country home of

Lord Berners Gerald Hugh Tyrwhitt-Wilson, 14th Baron Berners (18 September 188319 April 1950), also known as Gerald Tyrwhitt, was a British composer, novelist, painter, and aesthete. He was also known as Lord Berners. Biography Early life and education ...

, who inherited it in 1918. He moved to Faringdon House in 1931, along with his companion,

Robert Heber-Percy Robert Vernon Heber-Percy (5 November 1911 – 29 October 1987), known for much of his life as "the Mad Boy", was "an English eccentric in the grand tradition". Early life Heber-Percy was born in 1911, the fourth and youngest son of Algernon H ...

, nearly 30 years his junior and known as the Mad Boy. In 1942, Heber-Percy married

Jennifer Ross Ann Jennifer Evelyn Elizabeth Ross (; 16 March 1916 – 10 December 2003) was a British literary muse who for a time financed ''The London Magazine''. She was the only child of Sir Geoffrey Fry, 1st Baronet and his wife Alathea Gardner. She g ...

, the only child of

Sir Geoffrey Fry, 1st Baronet Sir Geoffrey Storrs Fry, 1st Baronet, (27 July 1888 – 1960) was private secretary to prime ministers Bonar Law and Stanley Baldwin, and a member of the Fry family. Early life Geoffrey Storrs Fry was born on 27 July 1888. He was the younger s ...

, and they had a daughter, Victoria, although the ''

ménage à trois A () is a domestic arrangement and committed relationship with three people in polyamorous romantic or sexual relations with each other, and often dwelling together; typically a traditional marriage between a man and woman along with anothe ...

'' lasted only two years before Jennifer and their daughter moved to her parents' home,

Oare House Oare House is a Grade I listed country house in Oare, Wiltshire, England. The house was built in 1740 for a London wine merchant, Henry Deacon. It was largely remodelled in the early 1920s by the architect Clough Williams-Ellis, for Sir Geoff ...

in Wiltshire. Berners was notorious for his eccentricity, dyeing pigeons at Faringdon in vibrant colours and at one point entertaining Penelope Betjeman's horse Moti to tea. There were paper flowers in the garden and the interior of the house was adorned with joke books and joke notices, such as "Mangling Done Here". Lord Berners died in 1950, and Heber-Percy inherited the house. In 2014 it was owned by the writer

Sofka Zinovieff Sofka Zinovieff (born 1961) is a British author and journalist. Early life Zinovieff was born in London. Her parents were Peter Zinovieff and Victoria Gala Heber-Percy. Her paternal grandparents were White Russians who had left Soviet Russia f ...

, the granddaughter of Heber-Percy. In September 2017, it was listed for sale at a price of £11.5 million.http://search.savills.com//content/assets/properties/gblhchlac150171/LAC150171_LAC17002815.PDF

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Faringdon House Houses completed in 1785 Grade I listed houses in Oxfordshire Faringdon Country houses in Oxfordshire