Beckley Park
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Beckley Park is a stately home located near the village of Beckley, in Oxfordshire, England.
It was built in 1540 by Lord Williams of Thame, who also built a great house at Rycote, a few miles away. It was originally built as a lodge for use when the lord and a party hunted the great park. Today it is the home of Amanda Feilding and the main headquarters of her Beckley Foundation which is doing research on the benefits of certain types of drugs.[1][2] Feilding is married to James Charteris, 13th Earl of Wemyss, who is himself the owner of Stanway House in Gloucestershire.
The Tudor brick edifice of the house is encircled by three moats which attest to the place's importance in former days. Beckley Park remained with the descendants of Lord Williams, the Earls of Abingdon, until 1920 when it was bought by Mr. Basil Feilding, father of Amanda Feilding, Lady Neidpath. It is situated between Beckley and Otmoor just outside Oxford.
The house is closed to the public, although it is regularly used for photo shoots and as a film location.
History
Beckley Park was first enclosed in the 12th century from land held by Roger D’Ivry and later by Richard, Duke of Cornwall, who built a palace on Beckley Hill around which grew the village. He then limited the area of the park by a stone wall, partly extant, and stocked with deer. The hunting lodge was built on a Saxon site at this spot in the centre of the enclosure. First mentioned in 1347, the lodge was re-built in 1376 for King Edward III; the moats, hall buttresses date from the late 14th century. The park was crown property and its keepers appointed by the King for two centuries: notable families were the Hamdens, the Verneys; and Sir John, later Lord Williams of Thame who in 1550 held the park by grant, rebuilt the lodge to probably the present structure. The park and lodge passed to the Norreys family, whose head in the late 17th was created Earl of Abingdon. In the early 17th Century also a family of Ledwells lived there for generations. The Estate was sold by the son of the seventh Earl of Abingdon to the grandfather of the present owner in 1919.
The house remains unaltered and 'unmodernised' to an unusual extent. It has been a Grade II listed building of historic interest since 1984 (List Entry Number: 1001087). The listing offers this summary:[3]
Formal early C20 gardens surrounding a mid C16 hunting lodge, incorporating the remains of three concentric medieval moats, formerly enclosing a medieval royal hunting lodge. The moats were probably part of medieval garden features, which possibly extended into the wider landscape of the surrounding former deer park.
Beckley Today
In 2005 Beckley Park was used as the set for one of the opening scenes of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire[4] in which Frank Bryce runs through the garden to The Riddle House. Photographers who have worked here include Mario Testino.
External links
- The Beckley Foundation
- Stanway, the house of Lady Neidpath's husband James Charteris, 13th Earl of Wemyss and March.
51°48′12″N 1°09′51″W / 51.8034°N 1.1643°W
References
- Timothy Mowl (1 May 2007). Historic Gardens of Oxfordshire. London: Tempus Publishing Ltd. ISBN 978-0752440866.
- ^ "Amanda Feilding: 'LSD can get deep down and reset the brain – like shaking up a snow globe'". The Guardian. 10 February 2019. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
- ^ "The Countess of Cannabis". Bloomberg News. 1 April 2019. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
- ^ https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1001087
- ^ "The Countess of Cannabis". Bloomberg News. 1 April 2019. Retrieved 2 April 2019.