Upton House, Warwickshire
#architecture #castle
Upton House, Warwickshire
Upton House is a country house in the civil parish of Ratley and Upton, in the English county of Warwickshire, about 7 miles (11 km) northwest of Banbury, Oxfordshire. It is in the care of the National Trust. The house is Grade II* listed as are the park and gardens.
The house was built on the site of the hamlet of Upton, which was destroyed in about 1500 when the land was cleared for pasture. The estate passed through various hands until the early 17th century when it was bought by Sir William Danvers. It remained with the Danvers family until 1688 when Sir Rushout Cullen purchased the estate for £7,000 (equivalent to £1,590,000 in 2023). Cullen built the house for himself in about 1695.
In 1757 the house was bought by banker Francis Child for use as a hunting lodge and it remained with his heirs in the Jersey family until the end of the 19th century when it was held by George Child Villiers, 5th Earl of Jersey. In 1897, the estate was bought by brewer Andrew Richard Motion, grandfather of the writer Andrew Motion. In 1927 the estate was acquired by Walter Samuel, 2nd Viscount Bearsted, who inherited a fortune from his father Marcus Samuel, 1st Viscount Bearsted, the founder of the oil company Shell Transport & Trading. His wife Lady Bearsted worked with "Kitty" Lloyd Jones to transform the house's garden during the early 1930s. Kitty is credited for converting an area of marshland into the bog garden, centered on a natural spring in the garden.
Lord Bearsted donated the house, gardens and art collection to the National Trust in 1948. Lord Bearsted's son, Marcus Samuel, 3rd Viscount Bearsted, lived at Upton from 1948 until his death in 1986 and added to the gift to the National Trust the collection of porcelain. On the death of the 3rd Viscount, the furniture and other items on view in the rooms were offered to the nation by his daughter, Mrs. R. Waley-Cohen, through the 'in lieu' system, on the condition that they remain at Upton and on view to the public. Mrs. Waley-Cohen continued to live in the house until 1988, when the family moved to another property on the estate.