Great Tew House

GREAT TEW NEW ROAD SP3929 (East side) 10/36 Great Tew House 27/08/56 (Formerly listed as Great Tew Park, together with Dovecote, Stable quadrangle with gateway and garden walls) GV II

Country house. Early C18, extended 1834 by Fulljames for M.R. Boulton and 1856 by Fulljames and Waller. Marlstone ashlar with limestone dressings; coursed limestone rubble with limestone dressings. Westmorland-slate roofs with limestone-ashlar stacks. Double-depth plan with large added wings. Present entrance front incorporates a 5-window ashlar C18 section of 3 storeys plus attic which retains 12- and 9-pane sashes but has added gables and has been extended both sides. Single-storey entrance wing, to right, has a C13 style arched doorway and a shallow dome to rear. Large 3-storey rubble wing of 1856, set back to right, has stone mullioned and transomed windows with labels. A small 2-storey section to extreme left of the front has segmental-arched sashes. The garden front incorporates the original 5-window front with pilasters, cornice, and storeybands linked to keyblocks; ground and first floors have stone-architraved sashes, and three are small roof dormers. Single-storey library range, to right, is of 1834 in C17 style, and has tall stone mullioned and transomed windows and a canted bay with a quatrefoil parapet. Garden front of later range, to left, is of 2 storeys, with moulded strings and heavy labels over small windows, and it is flanked by square towers, one terminating the range with a great pointed arch. The numerous stacks all have moulded caps, the latest with octagonal shafts. Interior not inspected but noted as having partly early-Victorian decoration in the drawing room and, in the library, a fine hammer-beam roof on elaborate stone corbels and a marble fireplace, all copied from Toddington Manor, Gloucestershire (Pevsner/Sherwood). The house was developed from a C18 building, originally within the village street following Mathew Robinson Boulton's purchase of the estate in 1815. He demolished the surrounding buildings and extended the house to replace the C16/C17 manor house. (V.C.H.: Oxfordshire, Vol.XI, p.227; Buildings of England: Oxfordshire, pp.626-7; C. Hussey, "Great Tew, Oxfordshire - I", Country Life, July 22, 1949).

Listing NGR: SP3971029058