Littlecote House
Encyclopedia
Littlecote House is a large Elizabethan
country house and estate in the civil parishes of Ramsbury
and Chilton Foliat
in the English
county of Wiltshire
(the latter formerly Berkshire
) near to Hungerford
. The estate includes 34 hectares of historic parklands and gardens, including a walled garden
from the 17th and 18th centuries. In its grounds is Littlecote Roman Villa
.
courted Jane Seymour
at the house; her grandmother was Elizabeth Darrell.
Sir John Popham bought the reversion
of Littlecote, and succeeded to it in 1589; he built the present Elizabethan brick mansion, which was completed in 1592. Elizabeth I, James I
, Charles II
and William of Orange
stayed there, William on his march from Torbay
to London in the Glorious Revolution
. Popham's descendants, the Pophams and (from 1762) the Leyborne Pophams owned the house until the 1920s. The Leyborne Pophams refurbished much of the house in 1810. They retained it until 1929, when the house was purchased by Sir Ernest Wills, 3rd Baronet
.
In September 1943 the US 101st Airborne Division requisitioned part of the house and it became home to regimental staff, regimental headquarters company and headquarters company of the 1st Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment. The house provided office space and sleeping quarters for 506th officers with the best rooms being allocated to Col. Robert F. Sink, Regimental Commander and Lt. Col. Charles H. Chase, his executive officer http://www.ramsburyatwar.com/101st_Airborne_Division.htm. The colonel used the library as his office and a memorial plaque can now be found in this room . From airfields in this area, including Ramsbury just to the west of here, the Airborne Division took off on D-Day, 6 June 1944, as part of the invasion of Normandy. Easy Company from this Regiment have become famous through the book and TV mini-series Band of Brothers http://www.hbo.com/band-of-brothers/index.html. All other ranks lived in Nissen huts built alongside the main drive between the house and the east lodge.
After the war, the owner's younger son, Seton Wills, inherited the estate and sold the house to the entrepreneur Peter de Savary
in 1985. In 1996, Warner Holidays acquired the house and estate and now operate it as a country house hotel and resort.
He had an affair with the wife of Sir Walter Hungerford
, his neighbour; when Sir Walter sued for divorce, she was acquitted, and Sir Walter sent to prison. Some years later, Mother Barnes, a midwife from Great Shefford
, recalled being brought blindfold in 1575 to the childbed of a lady, with a gentleman standing by who commanded her to save the life of the mother, but who (as soon as the child was born) threw it into the fire. Barnes did not name or indicate either Darrell or Littlecote, but his enemies quickly ascribed this murder to him.
Darrell's financial troubles increased, and he mortgaged Littlecote, first to Sir Thomas Bromley
, and then to Popham. He moved to London and spent some time in a debtors' prison; but died in 1589, of a riding accident while visiting Littlecote. Legend has it that whilst hunting, the ghost of the murdered newborn appeared to him, causing his horse to shy and throw him. Darrell is said to haunt the site of his death, known as Darrell's stile (or Style; as well as the church at Ramsbury
, two miles away), although one famed clairvoyant, Tom Corbett, detected nothing of the sort. He did sense the presence of a woman in the garden, whom he believed to be Mrs. Leyborne Popham, and another ghost in the Chinese bedroom he termed a "busybody," a word Mrs. Wills, wife of the then owner Major George Wills, agreed described the presence in that room. Another possible ghost is that of a past tenant, Gerard Lee Bevin (or Bevan), who lived at Littlecote after World War I and later served time for embezzlement. His presence has been felt in the Long Gallery.
Rumour managed to increase this scandal, suggesting that the sale of the estate was fictitious to avoid confiscation if Darrell was ever convicted, and that Popham kept Littlecote from Darrell's heirs (which he did not have). John Aubrey
tells that Littlecote was a bribe to Popham as his judge in a criminal case, which is impossible: Darrell was not charged or tried, and Popham was not yet a judge. Nevertheless this story was borrowed by Sir Walter Scott
, in Rokeby
, and by Charles Dickens
, in A Tale of Two Cities
.
In its grounds is Littlecote Roman Villa
, a Roman
winged corridor villa
and associated religious complex. It has been archaeologically excavated under the direction of Bryn Walters, and is on display to the public.
between the villages of Ramsbury
and Chilton Foliat
and about two miles northwest of the small Berkshire
town of Hungerford
. It is also in the heart of the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
.
Position:
Nearby towns and cities: Hungerford
, Marlborough, Newbury
, Swindon
Nearby villages: Ramsbury
, Chilton Foliat
Nearby places of interest: Crofton Pumping Station
, Wilton Windmill
Elizabethan architecture
Elizabethan architecture is the term given to early Renaissance architecture in England, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Historically, the period corresponds to the Cinquecento in Italy, the Early Renaissance in France, and the Plateresque style in Spain...
country house and estate in the civil parishes of Ramsbury
Ramsbury
Ramsbury is a village in Ramsbury and Axford civil parish in the English county of Wiltshire. The village is in the Kennet Valley near the Berkshire boundary. The nearest towns are Hungerford about east and Marlborough about west. The much larger town of Swindon is about to the north.The civil...
and Chilton Foliat
Chilton Foliat
Chilton Foliat is a village and civil parish on the River Kennet in Wiltshire. The parish is in the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It is on the county boundary with West Berkshire and is about northwest of the Berkshire market town of Hungerford.-Parish church:The Church of...
in the English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
county of Wiltshire
Wiltshire
Wiltshire is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset, Somerset, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire. It contains the unitary authority of Swindon and covers...
(the latter formerly Berkshire
Berkshire
Berkshire is a historic county in the South of England. It is also often referred to as the Royal County of Berkshire because of the presence of the royal residence of Windsor Castle in the county; this usage, which dates to the 19th century at least, was recognised by the Queen in 1957, and...
) near to Hungerford
Hungerford
Hungerford is a market town and civil parish in Berkshire, England, 9 miles west of Newbury. It covers an area of and, according to the 2001 census, has a population of 5,559 .- Geography :...
. The estate includes 34 hectares of historic parklands and gardens, including a walled garden
Walled garden
A walled garden is specifically a garden enclosed by high walls for horticultural rather than security purposes, though traditionally all gardens have been hedged about or walled for protection from animal or human intruders...
from the 17th and 18th centuries. In its grounds is Littlecote Roman Villa
Littlecote Roman Villa
Littlecote Roman Villa is a Roman winged corridor villa and associated religious complex at Littlecote Park in the civil parish of Ramsbury in the English county of Wiltshire...
.
History
The first Littlecote House was built during the 13th century. A Medieval mansion, it was inhabited by the de Calstone family from around 1290. When William Darrell married Elizabeth de Calstone in 1415, he inherited the house. His family went on to build the Tudor mansion in the mid 16th century. Henry VIIIHenry VIII of England
Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...
courted Jane Seymour
Jane Seymour
Jane Seymour was Queen of England as the third wife of King Henry VIII. She succeeded Anne Boleyn as queen consort following the latter's execution for trumped up charges of high treason, incest and adultery in May 1536. She died of postnatal complications less than two weeks after the birth of...
at the house; her grandmother was Elizabeth Darrell.
Reversion
Reversion may refer to:*Reversion *Reversion *Reversion *Reversion *Series reversion, in mathematics*Reversion, in evolutionary biology...
of Littlecote, and succeeded to it in 1589; he built the present Elizabethan brick mansion, which was completed in 1592. Elizabeth I, James I
James I of England
James VI and I was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603...
, Charles II
Charles II of England
Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...
and William of Orange
William III of England
William III & II was a sovereign Prince of Orange of the House of Orange-Nassau by birth. From 1672 he governed as Stadtholder William III of Orange over Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel of the Dutch Republic. From 1689 he reigned as William III over England and Ireland...
stayed there, William on his march from Torbay
Torbay
Torbay is an east-facing bay and natural harbour, at the western most end of Lyme Bay in the south-west of England, situated roughly midway between the cities of Exeter and Plymouth. Part of the ceremonial county of Devon, Torbay was made a unitary authority on 1 April 1998...
to London in the Glorious Revolution
Glorious Revolution
The Glorious Revolution, also called the Revolution of 1688, is the overthrow of King James II of England by a union of English Parliamentarians with the Dutch stadtholder William III of Orange-Nassau...
. Popham's descendants, the Pophams and (from 1762) the Leyborne Pophams owned the house until the 1920s. The Leyborne Pophams refurbished much of the house in 1810. They retained it until 1929, when the house was purchased by Sir Ernest Wills, 3rd Baronet
Sir Ernest Wills, 3rd Baronet
Sir Ernest Salter Wills, 3rd Baronet CStJ JP was Lord Lieutenant of Wiltshire from 1930 to 1942.-Life:The son of Sir Edward Payson Wills, 1st Baronet, KCB and of Lady Wills Sir Ernest Salter Wills, 3rd Baronet CStJ JP (30 November 1869 - 14 January 1958) was Lord Lieutenant of Wiltshire from 1930...
.
In September 1943 the US 101st Airborne Division requisitioned part of the house and it became home to regimental staff, regimental headquarters company and headquarters company of the 1st Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment. The house provided office space and sleeping quarters for 506th officers with the best rooms being allocated to Col. Robert F. Sink, Regimental Commander and Lt. Col. Charles H. Chase, his executive officer http://www.ramsburyatwar.com/101st_Airborne_Division.htm. The colonel used the library as his office and a memorial plaque can now be found in this room . From airfields in this area, including Ramsbury just to the west of here, the Airborne Division took off on D-Day, 6 June 1944, as part of the invasion of Normandy. Easy Company from this Regiment have become famous through the book and TV mini-series Band of Brothers http://www.hbo.com/band-of-brothers/index.html. All other ranks lived in Nissen huts built alongside the main drive between the house and the east lodge.
After the war, the owner's younger son, Seton Wills, inherited the estate and sold the house to the entrepreneur Peter de Savary
Peter de Savary
Peter John de Savary is an English entrepreneur and a former Chairman of Millwall F.C. In the 1999 Sunday Times Rich List, he was placed in 971st place with an estimated fortune of £21 million, but was not listed in the top thousand places in subsequent editions.-Biography:De Savary built his...
in 1985. In 1996, Warner Holidays acquired the house and estate and now operate it as a country house hotel and resort.
Wild William Darrell
The last of the Darrell owners is connected with several scandals and the house's resident ghost story. William Darrell's father had left the house to his mistress Mary Danyell, but Darrell was able to recover it when he came of age in 1560. He spent lavishly, left his debts unpaid, and went to law with most of his neighbours, acquiring enemies in the process. Sir John Popham was his relative and lawyer.He had an affair with the wife of Sir Walter Hungerford
Walter Hungerford
Walter Hungerford may refer to:*Walter Hungerford, 1st Baron Hungerford, d.1449, English nobleman and Speaker of the House of Commons*Walter Hungerford, 1st Baron Hungerford of Heytesbury, 1503–1540, first person in England to be executed under secular anti-homosexuality laws*Sir Walter Hungerford...
, his neighbour; when Sir Walter sued for divorce, she was acquitted, and Sir Walter sent to prison. Some years later, Mother Barnes, a midwife from Great Shefford
Great Shefford
Great Shefford is a village and civil parish in the English county of Berkshire.-Topography and history:The parish is in the district of West Berkshire, on the River Lambourn. The modern civil parish includes the historical parish of Little or East Shefford, a small hamlet and lost settlement...
, recalled being brought blindfold in 1575 to the childbed of a lady, with a gentleman standing by who commanded her to save the life of the mother, but who (as soon as the child was born) threw it into the fire. Barnes did not name or indicate either Darrell or Littlecote, but his enemies quickly ascribed this murder to him.
Darrell's financial troubles increased, and he mortgaged Littlecote, first to Sir Thomas Bromley
Thomas Bromley
Sir Thomas Bromley was an English lord chancellor.-Life:He was born in Staffordshire, was educated at Oxford University and then called to the bar at the Middle Temple...
, and then to Popham. He moved to London and spent some time in a debtors' prison; but died in 1589, of a riding accident while visiting Littlecote. Legend has it that whilst hunting, the ghost of the murdered newborn appeared to him, causing his horse to shy and throw him. Darrell is said to haunt the site of his death, known as Darrell's stile (or Style; as well as the church at Ramsbury
Ramsbury
Ramsbury is a village in Ramsbury and Axford civil parish in the English county of Wiltshire. The village is in the Kennet Valley near the Berkshire boundary. The nearest towns are Hungerford about east and Marlborough about west. The much larger town of Swindon is about to the north.The civil...
, two miles away), although one famed clairvoyant, Tom Corbett, detected nothing of the sort. He did sense the presence of a woman in the garden, whom he believed to be Mrs. Leyborne Popham, and another ghost in the Chinese bedroom he termed a "busybody," a word Mrs. Wills, wife of the then owner Major George Wills, agreed described the presence in that room. Another possible ghost is that of a past tenant, Gerard Lee Bevin (or Bevan), who lived at Littlecote after World War I and later served time for embezzlement. His presence has been felt in the Long Gallery.
Rumour managed to increase this scandal, suggesting that the sale of the estate was fictitious to avoid confiscation if Darrell was ever convicted, and that Popham kept Littlecote from Darrell's heirs (which he did not have). John Aubrey
John Aubrey
John Aubrey FRS, was an English antiquary, natural philosopher and writer. He is perhaps best known as the author of the collection of short biographical pieces usually referred to as Brief Lives...
tells that Littlecote was a bribe to Popham as his judge in a criminal case, which is impossible: Darrell was not charged or tried, and Popham was not yet a judge. Nevertheless this story was borrowed by Sir Walter Scott
Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....
, in Rokeby
Rokeby
Rokeby is the name of:People:* Baron Rokeby, a British titlePlaces in Australia:* Rokeby, Tasmania* Rokeby, VictoriaPlaces in Canada:* Rokeby, OntarioPlaces in the United Kingdom:* Rokeby Park...
, and by Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
, in A Tale of Two Cities
A Tale of Two Cities
A Tale of Two Cities is a novel by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. With well over 200 million copies sold, it ranks among the most famous works in the history of fictional literature....
.
Littlecote Roman Villa
Littlecote Roman Villa
Littlecote Roman Villa is a Roman winged corridor villa and associated religious complex at Littlecote Park in the civil parish of Ramsbury in the English county of Wiltshire...
, a Roman
Roman Britain
Roman Britain was the part of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire from AD 43 until ca. AD 410.The Romans referred to the imperial province as Britannia, which eventually comprised all of the island of Great Britain south of the fluid frontier with Caledonia...
winged corridor villa
Roman villa
A Roman villa is a villa that was built or lived in during the Roman republic and the Roman Empire. A villa was originally a Roman country house built for the upper class...
and associated religious complex. It has been archaeologically excavated under the direction of Bryn Walters, and is on display to the public.
Location
Littlecote House is located on the banks of the River KennetRiver Kennet
The Kennet is a river in the south of England, and a tributary of the River Thames. The lower reaches of the river are navigable to river craft and are known as the Kennet Navigation, which, together with the Avon Navigation, the Kennet and Avon Canal and the Thames, links the cities of Bristol...
between the villages of Ramsbury
Ramsbury
Ramsbury is a village in Ramsbury and Axford civil parish in the English county of Wiltshire. The village is in the Kennet Valley near the Berkshire boundary. The nearest towns are Hungerford about east and Marlborough about west. The much larger town of Swindon is about to the north.The civil...
and Chilton Foliat
Chilton Foliat
Chilton Foliat is a village and civil parish on the River Kennet in Wiltshire. The parish is in the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It is on the county boundary with West Berkshire and is about northwest of the Berkshire market town of Hungerford.-Parish church:The Church of...
and about two miles northwest of the small Berkshire
Berkshire
Berkshire is a historic county in the South of England. It is also often referred to as the Royal County of Berkshire because of the presence of the royal residence of Windsor Castle in the county; this usage, which dates to the 19th century at least, was recognised by the Queen in 1957, and...
town of Hungerford
Hungerford
Hungerford is a market town and civil parish in Berkshire, England, 9 miles west of Newbury. It covers an area of and, according to the 2001 census, has a population of 5,559 .- Geography :...
. It is also in the heart of the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
North Wessex Downs AONB
The North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty is located in the English counties of Berkshire, Hampshire, Oxfordshire and Wiltshire...
.
Position:
Nearby towns and cities: Hungerford
Hungerford
Hungerford is a market town and civil parish in Berkshire, England, 9 miles west of Newbury. It covers an area of and, according to the 2001 census, has a population of 5,559 .- Geography :...
, Marlborough, Newbury
Newbury, Berkshire
Newbury is a civil parish and the principal town in the west of the county of Berkshire in England. It is situated on the River Kennet and the Kennet and Avon Canal, and has a town centre containing many 17th century buildings. Newbury is best known for its racecourse and the adjoining former USAF...
, Swindon
Swindon
Swindon is a large town within the borough of Swindon and ceremonial county of Wiltshire, in South West England. It is midway between Bristol, west and Reading, east. London is east...
Nearby villages: Ramsbury
Ramsbury
Ramsbury is a village in Ramsbury and Axford civil parish in the English county of Wiltshire. The village is in the Kennet Valley near the Berkshire boundary. The nearest towns are Hungerford about east and Marlborough about west. The much larger town of Swindon is about to the north.The civil...
, Chilton Foliat
Chilton Foliat
Chilton Foliat is a village and civil parish on the River Kennet in Wiltshire. The parish is in the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It is on the county boundary with West Berkshire and is about northwest of the Berkshire market town of Hungerford.-Parish church:The Church of...
Nearby places of interest: Crofton Pumping Station
Crofton Pumping Station
Crofton Pumping Station is a pumping station near the village of Great Bedwyn in the English county of Wiltshire: it supplies the summit pound of the Kennet and Avon Canal with water....
, Wilton Windmill
Wilton Windmill
The Wilton Windmill is a five floor brick tower mill located on a chalk ridge between the villages of Wilton and Great Bedwyn in the southern English county of Wiltshire.-History:...