Littlecote House

Infobox Historic building
name = Littlecote House

---

caption = View of the house from the western lawn
map_type = Wiltshire
latitude = 51.431518
longitude = -1.563106
location = Chilton Foliat
location_town = Ramsbury, Wiltshire
location_country = United Kingdom
architect =
client = John Popham
engineer =
construction_start_date =
completion_date = 1592
date_demolished =
cost =
structural_system =
style = Elizabethan mansion
size =

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). 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.

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 VIII 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. His 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.

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.Fact|date=October 2007

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. [The Life And Achievements Of Sir John Popham, 1531-1607 By Douglas Walthew Rice 2005 ISBN 0838640605]

Darrell's financial troubles increased, and he mortgaged Littlecote, first to Sir Thomas Bromley, and then to Popham. He moved to London; but died in 1589, of a riding accident while visiting Littlecote. Legend has it that the ghost of the child appeared to him. Darrell is said to haunt the site of his death, known as Darrell's stile (as well as the church at Ramsbury, two miles away).Fact|date=October 2007

Rumour managed to increase this scandalWho|date=October 2007, 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. [Brief Lives By John Aubrey - 1979 ISBN 0851152066] Nevertheless this story was borrowed by Sir Walter Scott, in "Rokeby", and by Charles Dickens, in "A Tale of Two Cities". [cite book|title= The life and achievements of Sir John Popham, 1531-1607 : leading to the establishment of the first English colony in New England|first= Douglas Walthew|last= Rice|location= Madison, New Jersey|publisher= Fairleigh Dickinson University Press pp.83-90; Oxford DNB "sub" Popham calls Aubrey "demonstrably inaccurate", but suggests the mortgage "was" a fiction. cite journal|title=The Sources of a Tale of Two Cities|first =J. A.|lat= Falconer|journal = Modern Language Notes|issue = Vol. 36, No. 1. (Jan., 1921|url = http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0149-6611%28192101%2936%3A1%3C1%3ATSOATO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-G|month=Jan|year=1921|volume=36|pages=1|doi=10.2307/2914815|author=Falconer, J. A. p.8 of 1-10.]

Location

Littlecote House is located on the banks of the River Kennet between the villages of Ramsbury and Chilton Foliat and about two miles north of the small Berkshire town of Hungerford. It is also in the heart of the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Position: gbmapping|SU303703

Nearby towns and cities: Hungerford, Marlborough, Newbury, Swindon

Nearby villages: Ramsbury, Chilton Foliat

Nearby places of interest: Crofton Pumping Station, Wilton Windmill

Notes

See also

*List of places in Wiltshire

External links

* [http://www.warnerbreaks.co.uk/littlecote Littlecote House Hotel Website]