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Report - - Great Tew Manor House, Oxfordshire - 2010 | Other Sites | 28DaysLater.co.uk

Report - Great Tew Manor House, Oxfordshire - 2010

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Treadstone

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
I was put on the trail of this one thanks to this report from D-Kay A thread which also links to Locationworks - in case any readers want to book for their next fashion shoot / pop video.

I said on that thread there was enough of a germ of ID for me to find it in a few minutes, and a quick call to Mookster had a trip under way. Having collected him (my previous partner in fail) and a non-member friend of his we got a call from True British Metal - so we drove past the site, looped round to load TBM into the Treadmobile and returned. After a few minutes looking at the nearby church we happy few moved to the house. Here is the entry from the the Listed buildings database.

Country house. Early C18, extended 1834 by Fulljames and 1856 by Fulljames and Waller. Marlstone ashlar with limestone dressings; coursed limestone rubble with limestone dressings. Westmorland-slate roofs with limestone-ashlar stacks. Double-depth plan with large added wings. Present entrance front incorporates a 5-window ashlar C18 section of 3 storeys plus attic which retains 12- and 9-pane sashes but has added gables and has been extended both sides. Single-storey entrance wing, to right, has a C13 style arched doorway and a shallow dome to rear. Large 3-storey rubble wing of 1856, set back to right, has stone mullioned and transomed windows with labels. A small 2-storey section to extreme left of the front has segmental-arched sashes. The garden front incorporates the original 5-window front with pilasters, cornice, and storeybands linked to keyblocks; ground and first floors have stone-architraved sashes, and three are small roof dormers. Single-storey library range, to right, is of 1834 in C17 style, and has tall stone mullioned and transomed windows and a canted bay with a quatrefoil parapet. Garden front of later range, to left, is of 2 storeys, with moulded strings and heavy labels over small windows, and it is flanked by square towers, one terminating the range with a great pointed arch. The numerous stacks all have moulded caps, the latest with octagonal shafts. Interior not inspected but noted as having partly early-Victorian decoration in the drawing room and, in the library, a fine hammer-beam roof on elaborate stone corbels and a marble fireplace, all copied from Toddington Manor, Gloucestershire (Pevsner/Sherwood). The house was developed from a C18 building, originally within the village street following the purchase of the estate in 1815. [The owner] demolished the surrounding buildings and extended the house to replace the C16/C17 manor house.

It was given listed status in 1956 and is a mix of severe decay, uncanny preservation, and gentle - and it seems on-going - restoration. The excitement of TBM was ample compensation for the round trip to fetch him... so the pictures

First: Access.
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It was such a polite sign I decided I wasn't trespassing, merely looking for whoever would give me permission to take pictures. Anyone who uses please on a sign like that would probably say yes if asked. Entry was not challenging, and exit needed a title timing but was not hard either.

The building runs roughly E-W (probably nearer to say ESE-WNW) and this is the western end of the ground floor. The opening called for a model and one happened to step in.
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The Kitchen - roughly in the middle of the ground floor on the North side
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Upstairs - obligatory chair porn. Note the capitals on the columns behind, and also the state of the ceiling.
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Stained glass in the library
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Just inside the library were some interesting papers. Here's a cheque returned after it had been cashed (as was once the case with all cheques).
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It does pose a question: wikipedia told me the estate stayed in one family for about 100 years until the man whose signature is on the cheque died in 1914. If one of his cheques from 1898 is still there (with other papers), what kind of clearing out has happened since 1914 ... has it really been empty all that time ?? I SO wanted to take away the paperwork to ensure its proper preservation. But the "take nothing" ethic ran stronger.

Finally -for now at least - Mookster and TBM prepare to give their unique re-interpretation of a scene from reservoir dogs
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