Buckland House, Faringdon, Oxfordshire, England

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

A mid-18th-century country house surrounded by a contemporary park and pleasure grounds laid out by Richard Woods, with a formal garden terrace added probably by W H Romaine Walker around 1910 during extension work to the house.

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

Buckland Park lies in the Vale of the White Horse 6 kilometres north-east of Faringdon, at the west edge of the village of Buckland. The roughly 85 hectare site is bounded largely by roads to the west, south and south-east, separated from them by the remains of a drystone wall, and divided into two from west to east by the public St George's Road leading to the village. The north and north-east sides are bounded by agricultural land and the village itself. The southern two-thirds of the park lie on a plateau, with a sharp drop down to the northern third in which lies the Deer Park, Lakes and pleasure grounds, the slope continuing down to the River Thames 1 kilometre to the north. The steep north-facing slope is part of the escarpment running from Cumnor to Faringdon, with views north across the upper Thames valley towards the Cotswolds. The setting is largely agricultural, with the picturesque village lying adjacent, and long views north and east from the west side of the Deer Park. Woods' designed landscape seems to have continued into the fields south of The Croft (outside the area here registered), including a circuit taking in Home Farm and the adjacent gothick, ornamented dovecote (around 1755-7, possibly Richard Woods or John Wood the Younger, listed grade II*) (Debois 1993). This area is now bisected by an unusual avenue of groups of three or four mature pine trees flanking the drive south from Croft Lodge to Home Farm. The site is one of a group of landscape parks lying close to the A420 Oxford to Swindon road, including Pusey House, Hinton Manor (there are descriptions of both these sites in the Register) and Kingston Bagpuize House.

REFERENCES Used by English Heritage

Country Life, 37 (15 May 1915) pp 662-9; (22 May 1915), pp 698-705; no 2 (11 January 1990), pp 58-61

Victoria History of the County of Berkshire 4, (1924), p 453

N Pevsner and J Sherwood, The Buildings of England: Berkshire (1966), pp 105-6

Garden History 14, no 2 (1986), pp 89, 118; 15, no 2 (1987), p 132

Buckland House, A survey of the landscape, (Debois Landscape Survey Group 1993)

Maps

J Rocque, A topographical survey of the county of Berks ..., 1761

Enclosure map for Buckland parish, 1803 (Oxfordshire County Record Office)

C and J Greenwood, Map of the county of Berks ..., surveyed 1822-3, published 1824

Tithe map for Buckland parish, 1842 (Oxfordshire County Record Office)

OS 6" to 1 mile: 2nd edition published 1900, revised 1914; 3rd edition published 1931

OS 25" to 1 mile: 1st edition published 1876; 2nd edition published 1912
 

Description written: June 1998

Amended: March 1999; April 1999

Edited: January 2000