Wotton House

Wotton House, or Wotton, the manor house in Wotton Underwood (Buckinghamshire, Britain), was rebuilt between 1704 and 1714 to a design very similar to that of Buckingham House. The manor house had since the Norman conquest been the principal seat of the Grenville family, a notable member of whom was George Grenville, politician. Later radically altered, the house is considered a very fine example of English Baroque. The architect is unknown but John Fitch has been suggested.Fact|date=March 2008

A fire destroyed the content of the house in 1820, and John Soane was employed to restore it. He reduced its height, giving an impression of increased width, and made inventive use of the existing rooms, in particular creating a two-storey, top-lit entrance hall.

Wotton had a succession of occupiers down to and even including the second world war (when it was not requisitioned), but it was put up for sale shortly thereafter. Much of the pleasure grounds around it were sold in small parcels, and in the early 1950s the building was used by a boys' boarding school, which suddenly closed in 1953. Mrs Elaine Brunner thereupon bought it, and supervised extensive restoration work on the house through the rest of the 1950s; work on the remaining grounds followed. Work on restoring the house to Soane's original design continued, room after room being tackled since 1998.

After the south pavilion of Wotton was sold off, the historian Arthur Bryant and the actor John Gielgud lived in it for many years; Gielgud died there. In 2008 it was bought by Tony and Cherie Blair for £4m. [cite news | title=Blairs pay £4m for Gielgud's former home | publisher=The Guardian | date=Monday, 5 May 2008 | url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/may/05/tonyblair | accessdate=2008-05-06]

References

*Dean, Ptolemy. Obituary of Elaine Brunner. "The Independent", 10 April 1998. The obituary discusses the restoration of the house. [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_19980410/ai_n14159919 Available within BNET] .
*Inskip, Peter. "Soane and the Grenvilles." "Apollo", April 2004. ("Peter Inskip traces the story of Sir John Soane's work at Stowe, Buckingham House, Brasenose College, and Wotton House.") [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0PAL/is_506_159/ai_n6152635/pg_1 Available within BNET.]
*"Saving Wotton: The Remarkable Story of a Soane Country House." London: Sir John Soane's Museum, 2004. ISBN 0-9542284-7-2. Catalogue of an exhibition held at Soane Museum July–September 2004.

Footnotes