Bibury Court is a Grade I listed Jacobean country house in

Bibury Bibury is a village and civil parish in Gloucestershire, England. It is on the River Coln, a Thames tributary that rises in the same (Cotswold) District. The village centre is northeast of Cirencester. Arlington Row is a nationally notable a ...

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

, England. The

River Coln The River Coln is a river in Gloucestershire, England. It rises to the north of Brockhampton, a village to the east of Cheltenham, and flows in a south/south-easterly direction through the Cotswold Hills via Andoversford, Withington, Fosseb ...

flows to the south of the property.

History

The house was built between 1560 and 1599, and was first extended in 1633 for Sir Thomas Sackville. Later additions have since been made and the 16th-century building now forms the north wing. The Sackville family including their heirs the Cresswells owned it until 1816 when it was sold to Lord Sherborne.

Thomas Estcourt Cresswell Thomas Estcourt Cresswell (12 July 1712 – 14 November 1788) was an English landowner and politician. Biography He was the son of Richard Cresswell Richard Paul Wesley Cresswell (born 20 September 1977) is an English football coach and ...

had the interior remodelled around 1759. Sir Orme Clarke Bt CBE bought the house in the 1920s along with most of the surrounding Bibury estate from Lords Sherbourne and lived there with his wife Elfrida (née

Roosevelt Roosevelt may refer to: *Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919), 26th U.S. president * Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945), 32nd U.S. president Businesses and organisations * Roosevelt Hotel (disambiguation) * Roosevelt & Son, a merchant bank * Rooseve ...

). The House was sold by Sir Humphrey Clarke Bt in 1963 following the death of his mother but he, and later his son, Sir Tobias Clarke Bt, retained the Court Estate until the 1980s. The northern portion of the estate known as Kilkenny Farm was sold to S. J. Phillips & Sons (Kemble) Ltd who had been tenant farmers to the Clarke family. The house was converted into a hotel in 1968, and back into a private home in 2015, when it was purchased and renovated by the star designer

Marc Newson Marc Andrew Newson CBE RDI (born 20 October 1963) is an industrial designer who works in aircraft cabin design, product design, furniture design, jewellery, and clothing. His style uses smooth geometric lines, translucency, strength, tran ...

and his wife, fashion stylist Charlotte Stockdale.

Architecture

The house and outbuildings are of

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 walls and gateway date from the early 18th century. The 16th-century house now forms the north wing. The east front has a symmetrical centre with the north and south wings to either side. When it was a hotel, the property offered 18 rooms. The estate includes over of woodland, of

pasture Pasture (from the Latin ''pastus'', past participle of ''pascere'', "to feed") is land used for grazing. Pasture lands in the narrow sense are enclosed tracts of farmland, grazed by domesticated livestock, such as horses, cattle, sheep, or sw ...

and over of arable farmland, making a total of . The buildings on the estate include a 17th-century Mill House and 18th-century

dovecote A dovecote or dovecot , doocot ( Scots) or columbarium is a structure intended to house pigeons or doves. Dovecotes may be free-standing structures in a variety of shapes, or built into the end of a house or barn. They generally contain pige ...

. The mill itself contains the original machinery over the

mill race A mill race, millrace or millrun, mill lade (Scotland) or mill leat (Southwest England) is the current of water that turns a water wheel, or the channel ( sluice) conducting water to or from a water wheel. Compared with the broad waters of a m ...

and a pump to supply water to the New Barn. The Court Farmhouse dates from the 17th century. The stables are from the early 19th century, although another former stable block from the late 16th century has been converted into a bar.

References

External links

Former hotel websiteBibury Village site
{{Authority control Country houses in Gloucestershire Hotels in Gloucestershire Houses completed in 1633 Hotels established in 1968 Jacobean architecture in the United Kingdom Grade I listed houses in Gloucestershire 1633 establishments in England Defunct hotels in England