Middleton Park, Oxford, England

The following is from the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest.

Country house with remains of early 18th-century pleasure grounds based on medieval park, surrounded by an 18th/early 19th-century landscape park. Early 19th-century improvements to pleasure grounds and park probably by Lewis Kennedy.

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

Middleton Park lies to the west of the village of Middleton Stoney, 15 kilometres north of Oxford. The roughly 330 hectare park is defined by the parish boundary and wall to the south, a strip of farmland between the perimeter belt and the ancient monument known as Ash Bank to the west, and the B4030 public road to the north and east, along with the village of Middleton Stoney, which also lies to the east. The land is mainly level, the ground falling gently to west and south.

REFERENCES Used by English Heritage

Country Life, 100 (5 July 1946), pp 28-31; (23 July 1946), pp 74-77

N Pevsner and J Sherwood, The Buildings of England, Oxfordshire (1974), pp 703-4

Garden History, 4 no. 7, (1976), pp 54-56

F Woodward, Oxfordshire Parks (1982), pp 5-7, 18, 24, 31

J Brown, Gardens of a Golden Afternoon (1982), p. 176

Maps [all held at Oxfordshire Record Office]

A map of Middleton Stoney, 1710, The Honble Henry Boyle, Lord of the Manor (private enclosure map)

The contents of Severall Inclosures and Parts designed for the Rt Honble the Earl of Jersey at Middleton Stoney, 1736

Davies, A New Map of the County of Oxford, 1797

OS Maps

OS 1" to 1 mile: 1st edition published 1833

OS 6" to 1 mile: 1st edition published 1884; 2nd edition published 1900

OS 25" to 1 mile: 1st edition published 1881

Illustrations

Lewis Kennedy, Alterations for the Improvement of Middleton Park, 1811 (private collection)
 

Description written: February 1998

Amended January 1999

Edited: March 2000