Kiddington Hall is a large

Grade II listed 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 ...

manor house located in

Kiddington Kiddington is a village on the River Glyme in the civil parish of Kiddington with Asterleigh about southeast of Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire. The village is just north of the A44 road between Woodstock and Chipping Norton. Manor The toponym ...

, near

Woodstock, Oxfordshire Woodstock is a market town and civil parish, north-west of Oxford in West Oxfordshire in the county of Oxfordshire, England. The 2011 Census recorded a parish population of 3,100. Blenheim Palace, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is next to Wo ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

History

Kiddington Hall was built in 1673, and in the 18th century "Capability" Brown laid out the gardens. The Reverend

Thomas Warton Thomas Warton (9 January 172821 May 1790) was an English literary historian, critic, and poet. He was appointed Poet Laureate in 1785, following the death of William Whitehead. He is sometimes called ''Thomas Warton the younger'' to disti ...

, a fellow of

Trinity College, Oxford (That which you wish to be secret, tell to nobody) , named_for = The Holy Trinity , established = , sister_college = Churchill College, Cambridge , president = Dame Hilary Boulding , location = Broad Street, Oxford OX1 3BH , coordinates ...

, who was rector of Kiddington for 20 years and

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) ...

from 1785, pictures the coming of spring on the estate in his April Ode with "swallows skimming the village green and rooks swarming in the oak trees round the manor house". Estate owner Sir George Browne provided the real-life inspiration for "Sir Plume of amber snuff-box justly vain" in

Alexander Pope Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 O.S. – 30 May 1744) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early 18th century. An exponent of Augustan literature, ...

’s ''

The Rape of the Lock ''The Rape of the Lock'' is a mock-heroic narrative poem written by Alexander Pope. One of the most commonly cited examples of high burlesque, it was first published anonymously in Lintot's ''Miscellaneous Poems and Translations'' (May 1712) ...

''. In 1840 the estate passed to Mortimer Ricardo, youngest son of the political economist

David Ricardo David Ricardo (18 April 1772 – 11 September 1823) was a British Political economy, political economist. He was one of the most influential of the Classical economics, classical economists along with Thomas Robert Malthus, Thomas Malthus, Ad ...

. In 1850 he commissioned the architect Sir Charles Barry to remodel the house in his trademark

Italianate architecture The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...

style, build a new stable courtyard adjoining the hall to the north, and create formal terraced gardens to the south and west, overlooking Brown's park. Barry rebuilt the house so completely that no external trace of the original building is visible. Beyond the Victorian

orangery An orangery or orangerie was a room or a dedicated building on the grounds of fashionable residences of Northern Europe from the 17th to the 19th centuries where orange and other fruit trees were protected during the winter, as a very large ...

to the south, a gate leads to the square-towered 14th-century church of St Nicholas, where stained-glass windows commemorate the former

High Sheriff of Oxfordshire The High Sheriff of Oxfordshire, in common with other counties, was originally the King's representative on taxation upholding the law in Saxon times. The word Sheriff evolved from 'shire-reeve'. The title of High Sheriff is therefore much older ...

Henry Lomax Gaskell and his wife, Alice, whose family lived at the Hall from 1855 to 1953. In 1950

Lawrence Robson Sir Lawrence William Robson, FCA, (8 August 1904 – 24 August 1982) was a British accountant and Liberal Party activist. Born in Norton-on-Tees, Robson studied at Stockton Grammar School and the Royal Academy of Music before becoming an acc ...

, founder of accountancy company

Robson Rhodes RSM Robson Rhodes LLP was a partnership of chartered accountants in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It was the UK member firm of RSM Global, the 6th largest network of professional accountancy firms in the world. With offices throughout the UK ...

, rented Kiddington Hall, and then bought it in 1953. From here he and his wife

Inga-Stina Robson Inga-Stina Robson, Baroness Robson of Kiddington (''née'' Arvidsson; 20 August 1919 – 9 February 1999), often known as Stina Robson, was an Anglo-Swedish political activist. Born to a wealthy family in Stockholm as Inga-Stina Arvidsson, she ...

worked on his unsuccessful candidature for the

Liberal Party The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left. __TOC__ Active liberal parties This is a li ...

Banbury Banbury is a historic market town on the River Cherwell in Oxfordshire, South East England. It had a population of 54,335 at the 2021 Census. Banbury is a significant commercial and retail centre for the surrounding area of north Oxfordshire ...

at the 1950 general election. The house was used as a conference centre and was popular for Liberal Party events. In the run-up to the 1955 general election, Lawrence was the Liberals' prospective candidate in Eye, but he was appointed to a government commission and withdrew. This left Inga-Stina to contest the seat, but she was not successful. On the death of Sir Lawrence in 1982, his son Maurice Robson inherited the house. In September 2009 Maurice placed the entire Kiddington Estate on the market for £42 million, his divorce seemingly being the reason for the sale. Socialite and model

Jemima Khan Jemima Marcelle Goldsmith (born 30 January 1974; known as Jemima Khan for work) is an English screenwriter, television, film and documentary producer and the founder of Instinct Productions, a television production company. She was formerly a j ...

bought Kiddington Hall in Autumn 2010 for a reported £15 million. The property underwent refurbishment, which was completed in 2012.

Structure

The house is built of pale, honey-coloured

Cotswold stone The Cotswolds (, ) is a region in central-southwest England, along a range of rolling hills that rise from the meadows of the upper Thames to an escarpment above the Severn Valley and Evesham Vale. The area is defined by the bedrock of Jur ...

. The entrance and staircase lead to five main reception rooms, which include: a

Rococo Rococo (, also ), less commonly Roccoco or Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, ...

-style drawing room; a morning room; a richly decorated dining room with twin columns and carved marble fireplace; a library with its Neoclassical

frieze In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...

s; and a panelled

billiards Cue sports are a wide variety of games of skill played with a cue, which is used to strike billiard balls and thereby cause them to move around a cloth-covered table bounded by elastic bumpers known as . There are three major subdivisions of ...

room that overlooks the gardens. The main 18th-century staircase leads to two bedroom suites, seven further bedrooms and three bathrooms on the first floor. The back stairs lead to the second floor and 10 attic rooms. The hall and its adjoining

are listed Grade II on the

National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, an ...

, and Kiddington Park is also listed Grade II on the

Register of Historic Parks and Gardens The Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England provides a listing and classification system for historic parks and gardens similar to that used for listed buildings. The register is managed by Historic England ...

References

{{coord, 51.9026, -1.4030, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title Country houses in Oxfordshire Gardens by Capability Brown Grade II listed buildings in Oxfordshire Grade II listed houses Grade II listed parks and gardens in Oxfordshire Houses completed in 1673 Italianate architecture in England West Oxfordshire District Charles Barry buildings Orangeries