Shotover Park

Shotover Park
Aerial view of Shotover Park, with the two large ponds in the foreground
Location within Oxfordshire
General information
Type	Country house
Architectural style	Georgian
Location	Wheatley, Oxfordshire
Coordinates	51°45′22″N 1°09′18″W / 51.756071°N 1.155129°W / 51.756071; -1.155129Coordinates: 51°45′22″N 1°09′18″W / 51.756071°N 1.155129°W / 51.756071; -1.155129
Current tenants	Alexander James Sinnott Stanier
Completed	c. 1714-20
Renovated	1855
Client	James Tyrrell, Gen. James Tyrrell
Design and construction
Architect	William Townsend (possibly)
Renovating team
Architect	Joshua Sims
Listed Building – Grade I
Designated	18 July 1963
Reference no.	1284986

Shotover Park (also called Shotover House) is an 18th-century country house and park in Wheatley, Oxfordshire, England. The house, garden and park are Grade I-listed with English Heritage, and 18 additional structures on the property are also listed. The house is privately owned; the surrounding parkland is open to the public as Shotover Country Park.^[1][2]

Toponymy

The source of the name Shotover is uncertain. It is believed to come from Château Vert ("Green Castle"), a French Norman Royal hunting lodge on the site. Novelist Robert Graves was a proponent of this theory, mentioning it in his classic book A Wife for Mr Milton.^[3] Another alternative is the Old English Scoet Ofer ("steep slope"), and could take its name from Shotover Hill, 3 miles (4.8 km) to the east of Oxford, which rises to 557 feet (170 m) above sea level.^[4]

History

The land encompassing Shotover Park was part of the Wychwood royal forest as far back as the Domesday Book.^[3]

Reportedly, Shotover Park came into the possession of the Tyrrell family after a freak hunting accident early in the 17th century. The story is that Timothy Tyrrell, Master of the Royal Buckhounds, was holding a dead stag for the teenaged Henry, Prince of Wales, eldest son of King James I. According to a chronicle of the unfortunate accident: "By his employment, [Tyrrell] held the Buck's head for the Prince to cut it off, in doing which His Highness cut the Master of the Buckhounds across the hand, which disabled him of the use of it forever." In compensation, the crown granted the rangership of Shotover to Tyrrell (later Sir Timothy).^[3]

The Tyrrell family, originally from Oakley, Buckinghamshire, grew extremely powerful in the 17th century. The royal forest extended over Headington, Marston, and parts of 10 other parishes. However, ongoing fighting among the local population, as well as trees felled by the Royalists during the English Civil War, caused the forest to fall into such disarray that in 1660 the woodland was disafforested – no longer subject to royal forest laws.^[3]

Shotover engraving by George Bickham the Younger, 1750, showing the house prior to additional wings added in 1850s expansion

A building known as Shotover House was on the site during Sir Timothy's lifetime, prior to 1660. His son James Tyrrell, the political theorist and historian, left Oakley to move to Shotover House to be closer to Oxford University. He was a close friend of John Locke, whom he met at Oxford in 1658. Locke was a frequent guest at Shotover in the early 1680s, and he stored papers and books there for safekeeping when he was forced to flee to Holland in 1683.^[5]

Sir Timothy died in 1701. The construction of the current Shotover Park began circa 1714–15 under his son James. In 1717–18, he built a Gothic temple at Shotover. The temple, with corner turrets, arcaded loggia, and battlemented gable, is possibly the first intimation of the Gothic Revival architecture in England. James died the following year and the construction of the building was continued under his son, Lieutenant-General James Tyrrell, an Army officer and MP.^[5][1][6]

The architect of the new house commissioned by Sir Timothy is uncertain, but Shotover Park is believed to have been designed by William Townsend (or Townesend; 1676–1739), an Oxford architect and mason who worked on many buildings at Oxford University, and who was the son of Mayor of Oxford John Townesend. Sir Nikolaus Pevsner wrote in the Oxfordshire edition of his Buildings of England series that Shotover Park has strong similarities with The Queen's College, Oxford, linking it to Townsend.^[3] Construction was likely completed by 1720; the date 1718 does appear on rainwater heads.^[1][7][8][9] The design of the elder James Tyrrell's Gothic temple has been attributed to Townsend or to James Gibbs.^[6]

Shotover Park was constructed of colour-washed limestone ashlar with a roof made of Westmorland and Welsh slate with stone stacks. The house is built to a double-depth plan, consisting of two storeys, plus a basement and attics. The initial house featured a seven-window front. In 1855, it was extended to 15-windows with two wings added on either side in a renovation by Joshua Sims. The Ionic pedimented porch, the arched front doorway and flanking arched windows are likely from the mid-19th century additions. The windows on the ground and first floors feature floating cornices, moulded architraves and sills supported on consoles.^[1]

Early outbuildings and features at Shotover Park included three stables, a coach house, a granary, a barn, dairy, work house, a brewhouse, gardener's cottage, several gardens and nurseries with young trees, and six small fishponds. The formal garden on the site dates to 1718, which includes a Grade I-listed walled kitchen garden.^[10]

James Tyrrell died in 1742 and left the estate being left to the family of his friend, the Baron Augustus Schütz, a Hanoverian favourite of King George I, who became Master of the Robes to King George II.^[2] It passed to his son, George Frederick Schutz, who was Groom of the Bedchamber to King George III, and in turn to his son, Thomas James Schutz.^[11]

When Thomas died, Shotover Park passed into the hands of the Drury family through his youngest sister Mary, who married Sir George Vandeput, 2nd Baronet. They left only one heir, a daughter Frances, who married Richard Vere Drury. Shotover passed to their son, George Vandeput Drury, who died without an heir in November 1849.^[11]

In 1850, George Gammie (later Gammie-Maitland) bought Shotover, reportedly with the proceeds of the sale of property he owned in Australia. (His business partner, William Gilbert Rees, named Shotover River in New Zealand for Gammie.)^[12] Gammie-Maitland went bankrupt in 1871, when the estate was sold to Colonel James Miller. It stayed in the Miller family until 2006, owned by Alfred Douglas Miller and his son Sir John Miller, Crown Equerry and friend of Queen Elizabeth II. The royal family were frequent visitors to the estate;^[3] Princess Anne suffered a broken nose falling off a horse while riding at Shotover at age 15.^[13]

In addition to the Gothic temple built for Sir Timothy, the garden includes an obelisk and another temple designed by William Kent. The Kent temple was badly damaged in the 1980s by falling trees, but it was restored in 1988 with assistance from the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission.^[3]

Today

Shotover Park has been held in a trust since the death of Sir John Miller in 2006. Sir John's nephew, Sir Belville Stanier, 3rd Baronet, is one of the trustees; his son, Alexander James Sinnott Stanier, lives in a wing of the house. The park and estate cover 2,000 acres.^[14] The forest, known as Shotover Country Park, is open to the public and managed by the Oxford City Council.

Gallery

• 

  Obelisk, designed by William Kent, circa 1735

• 

  Shotover Park and pond

• 

  Octagonal temple, designed by Kent

• 

  Outbuildings, with main house in the background

• 

  Gated entrance to Shotover Park

• 

  Natural archway

• 

  Stone bench

• 

  Trees in Shotover Park

Listed buildings

• Grade I: Shotover Park^[1]
• Grade I: Shotover park and garden^[2]
• Grade II*: Gothic Temple^[15]
• Grade II*: Obelisk^[16]
• Grade II*: Octagonal Temple^[17]
• Grade II: Oxford Gate^[18]
• Grade II: Oxford Lodge^[19]
• Grade II: Eastern Pier of Gateway^[20]
• Grade II: Home Farm, South Range^[21]
• Grade II: Home Farm, Central Range^[22]
• Grade II: Dovecote^[23]
• Grade II: Stables^[24]
• Grade II: Steps^[25]
• Grade II: Garden Seat^[26]
• Grade II: The Grove^[27]
• Grade II: Garden Walls and Gardener's Cottage^[28]
• Grade II: Ornamental Wellhead^[29]
• Grade II: Western Pier of Gateway^[30]
• Grade II: Stable Court^[31]

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Shotover Park.

• Grade I listed buildings in South Oxfordshire

References