The Bishop'S House

The Bishop's House is a rectory, now a house, built between 1683 and 1686 for John Fell, Bishop of Oxford, with Baroque-style additions made around 1710 for Edward Strong. The structure features coursed limestone rubble and squared and coursed limestone, topped with a gabled stone slate roof and end and lateral stacks made of stone ashlar finished in brick. It has a cruciform plan, with the angles at the front infilled in the early 18th century.

The front showcases a late 17th-century three-storey gable end, flanked by two-storey blocks from the early 18th century. An early 18th-century bracketed stone flat hood, adorned with guttae on the brackets, sits above the double-leaf doors, which are set in a moulded stone architrave. The door is flanked by narrow 20th-century windows within 17th-century chamfered stone architraves, and there is a 20th-century window with a similar architrave above a late 18th-century six-pane sash window above the door.

The early 18th-century blocks, featuring corner piers that rise above the parapet, include a late 19th-century canted bay window to the left and keyed segmental arches over 19th-century six-pane sashes, as well as a late 19th-century plate-glass sash to the right. The left side of the block to the left has a massive bracketed open pediment above an early 18th-century six-pane sash window with thick glazing bars, set in a Baroque-style keyed architrave with guttae carved under the brackets. The remainder of the house features late 17th-century chamfered stone architraves and late 18th-century six-pane sashes.

Inside, the house is noted for its bolection-moulded fireplaces and mid-18th-century panelled rooms. It was built for the use of the Rector of Bladon. Edward Strong, who owned the Taynton quarries, was significantly involved in the construction of Blenheim Palace. It is suggested that this house was one of those for which Sarah Churchill claimed stone was paid for from the Blenheim account, explaining the later additions to the building.