Henley Park is a country house and

landscape garden The English landscape garden, also called English landscape park or simply the English garden (french: Jardin à l'anglaise, it, Giardino all'inglese, german: Englischer Landschaftsgarten, pt, Jardim inglês, es, Jardín inglés), is a sty ...

Bix and Assendon Bix and Assendon is a mainly rural civil parish in the high Chilterns just north of Henley-on-Thames in South Oxfordshire, England. The parish includes the villages of Bix, Lower Assendon Lower Assendon is a village in the Assendon valley in ...

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

in the Chiltern Hills of

South Oxfordshire South Oxfordshire is a local government district in the ceremonial county of Oxfordshire, England. Its council is temporarily based outside the district at Abingdon-on-Thames pending a planned move to Didcot, the district's largest town. The a ...

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 ...

. The house is about north of Henley-on-Thames. The park adjoins the county boundary with Buckinghamshire. The park was created in the 13th century as the medieval deer park of the

Fawley Court Fawley Court is a country house, with large mixed-use grounds standing on the west bank of the River Thames at Fawley in the English county of Buckinghamshire. Its former deer park extended east into the Henley Park area of Henley-on-Thames, Ox ...

Estate. In 1300 it became part of the manor of Henley. Henley Park house is in a small park north of the Fair Mile that leads north-north-west from Henley. It was the

dower house A dower house is usually a moderately large house available for use by the widow of the previous owner of an English, Scottish or Welsh estate. The widow, often known as the "dowager", usually moves into the dower house from the larger family ...

to Fawley Court. In the Georgian era the park was converted into a

with ''"beautiful inclosures descending in natural waving slopes from the house."''

George III George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two kingdoms on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Br ...

was a friend of Mrs. Freeman, widow of

Sambrooke Freeman Sambrooke Freeman FRSA (aka Sambrook Freeman, c.1721–1782) was a member of the prominent Freeman family of Fawley Court near Henley-on-Thames, England.Sambrooke Freeman of Fawley Court. In Roger Kendal, Jane Bowen, and Laura Wortley, ''Geniu ...

, and visited her here. The visit was somewhat embarrassing for Mrs. Freeman who was unwell at the time and so had to let the royal party explore the house on their own as described in the diary of Mrs. Caroline Girle Powys, wife of Philip Lybbe Powys.

References

Sources

* * Country houses in Oxfordshire Parks and open spaces in Oxfordshire Henley-on-Thames {{Oxfordshire-geo-stub