Little Sodbury Manor, South Gloucestershire, England

Little Sodbury was inhabited as a Bronze Age settlement. Embankments remain further up and down the hill on both sides of the manor. Mounds have obviously been levelled in creating the gardens.

The first known house on the site was built in the 1420s by the Stanshaw family, their Great Hall being retained as part of the present house. The site was then approached via a gatehouse to the south.

The property passed to Richard Foster, and from him in 1492 to his son-in-law, John Walsh, who carried out major building works including the building of the Church of St. Adelaine and the creation of the wing to the north-west of the Great Hall. The bowling green was also built around this time. His son, Sir John Walsh, added the large wing with an oriel window to the south of the hall. From 1521 to 1523, Sir John employed William Tyndale, translator of the Bible into English, as chaplain and tutor to his children.

The Walsh family continued in ownership until 1608, when the manor was sold to Thomas Stephens, Attorney General to the King. His son Edward built a new staircase and demolished the gatehouse and outbuildings to the south.

The house was extensively damaged by fire in 1703, and there was a further fire in the north wing in the 18th century. The Stephens family had by this time made many alterations to the interior of the house, adding new windows and a new entrance hall on the north side. The north wing was completely re-modelled in Queen Anne style.

In 1728 the manor passed through the female line to Robert Packer of Donnington Castle, and through his daughter to the Hartley family, who owned it until 1911. From the 1820s the house was not occupied by the family, but let to tenant farmers, and it gradually fell into serious disrepair.

In 1911 the property was sold to the 9th Duke of Beaufort, and then to Lord Hugh Grosvenor, son of the Duke of Westminster. He commissioned Sir Harold Brakspear to restore the building. When Lord Hugh was killed during the First World War, the house was sold back to the Beaufort family. Brakspear continued to work on the restoration of the house and garden.

The new owner was Baron Francis de Tuyll, stepson of the Duke of Beaufort, who lived at Little Sodbury until his death in 1952. After this date the house passed to the Harfords, an old Bristol family who were cousins of the Baron. The present owner, Gerald Harford, inherited the property in 1969, but has only lived there since 1985.