Lyford Grange

LYFORD SU39SE 7/129 Lyford Grange 09/02/66

• II*

House. c.1430-80, for More family: mid C16 alterations and rear wing for Thomas Yates. Roughcast over original timber framing: C15 close studding with middle rail to rear wall and to part of adjoining wall of mid C16 right wing. Left side wall and left wing of limestone rubble. Hipped stone slate roof; mid C16 brick ridge stack finished in early/mid C18 brick, and moulded top to early/mid C18 ridge stack to left. Courtyard plan: range to rear (north-west) demolished c.1817. 2 storeys: 4-window front range. C20 flat hood and C19 moulded architrave to C20 door in central bay. C19 eight-pane sashes in outer bays except early C18 wood cross-window with leaded-lights to lower left: moulded wood cornice. Similar cross-window to rear. Right gable wall has C20 French windows set in C16 cavetto-moulded stone architrave. Moulded end stack to rear gable wall of truncated right wing. Interior: former hall has, in present attic, a 4-bay roof of arched-braced collar trusses flanking central collar truss which has mortices for decorative braces and ends of moulded tie beam: cusp-chamfered windbraces, and chamfered principals and butt purlins. Timber-framed partition divides off 2-bay room to left, with queen post truss. 2-bay parlour end to right: moulded beams, fine mid Cl6 stone moulded fireplace set within mid Cl6 panelled wall on first floor. C16 plank door opens to closet in front of chimney stack which has 3 lights divided by cavetto-moulded mullions over low studded wall facing hall, and similar mullion of blocked window to front: deep embrasured window surround to right suggests original oriel. Roof of right wing remodelled in C18. This moated site, formerly a grange of Abingdon Abbey, was acquired in 1538 by John Yates of Charney Bassett. It was probably remodelled after 1540 by his son Thomas whose son Francis sheltered Edmund Campion of the ill-fated Jesuit Mission in July 1581: Campion was caught and executed at Tyburn the following December. An Agnus Dei found in the roof in 1959, bears witness to his visit since it is dated 1578 and bears the inscription of Pope Gregory XIII. (V.M. Howse, Lyford: A Parish Record, pp.27-38; V.C.H.: Berkshire, Vol.IV, pp.285, 290; Evelyn Waugh, Edmund Campion, 1980, pp.141-50).

Listing NGR: SU3961794531