Читать книгу Made in Great Britain - Tom Quinn - Страница 25

When you look at this house and its setting it is very difficult to understand how our 18th and 19th-century forebears could happily demolish hundreds of similar houses on the premises that they were quaint and old-fashioned – precisely those qualities that we now value so highly.

Owlpen deserves to be better known, for it is the quintessence of Englishness. The Tudor manor house – which began life in 1450 and has been little altered since about 1610 – sits in a quiet wooded valley in one of the few remaining remote areas of the Cotswolds. Owlpen has nothing to do with owls – in Old English the name means the ‘land enclosed by Olla’, presumably a chieftain. By the 12th century the de Olepenne family was living here. Then in the early 15th century the house and land passed to the Daints, who kept it until the early 20th century. In 1925 the estate was broken up and sold. By sheer good luck the old manor house, which had been empty for almost a century, was bought and carefully repaired by the Arts and Crafts architect Norman Jewson.

Today, Owlpen sits at the centre of a cluster of historic buildings, including a mill dating from 1728 and a group of cottages, some of which are available for rent. The manor house – which houses a collection of Arts and Crafts furniture – still has its Tudor great hall, another great chamber with tapestries dating from 1700 and a beautiful early-Georgian parlour.

SECRETS

OWLPEN MANOR, near Uley, Gloucester, GL11 (owlpen.com). 01453 860261. Opening times vary, so check website.

While you’re there

Visit medieval SUDELEY CASTLE just 13km (8 miles) away (sudeleycastle.co.uk).

Secret place to stay

WHITE HART INN, Winchcombe (whitehartwinchcombe.co.uk). 01242 602359. Charming 16th-century inn in the heart of an historic town.

Owlpen Manor is surrounded by beech woods.