Carfax Conduit

NUNEHAM COURTENAY NUNEHAM PARK SU59NW 4/95 Carfax Conduit 18/07/63

GV I

Conduit, now eyecatcher. 1617 by John Clarke, mason, for Otho Nicholson; 1686 lower part rebuilt, probably by Thomas Wood, mason; 1789 removed to Nuneham Park bv the 2nd Earl Harcourt. Limestone ashlar. Square plan. Each face of the lower stage has a recessed panel, flanking pilasters, and an entablature with a triglyph frieze incorporating the arms of Oxford and the University. The ornamental pierced balustrade includes the letters ONON on each face and has a cresting of standing figures, obelisks and cartouches with heraldic beasts at the angles. From within the parapet 4 ornamental flying buttresses support an octagonal superstructure containing 8 niches with standing figures between mermaid caryatids. The openwork done, covered with fish-scales, has a border of 8 figures and a finial comprising 2 figures back to back. The decoration forms a complicated allegory with many allusions to the original function of the conduit. Tablets on 2 sides of the lower structure commemorate, in English and Latin, the setting up of the conduit in the park. A focal point of the important landscape by Lancelot Brown. (Nuneham Park is included in the HBMC County Register of Gardens at Grade I ; V.C.H.: Oxfordshire, Vo1.V, p.234; Buildings of England: Oxfordshire, p.728; C, Cole, "Carfax Conduit", Oxoniensia, Vols. 29 and 30, 1964/5, pp.142-l66)

Listing NGR: SU5372497669