In the north of Oxfordshire, on the edge of the Cotswolds, Chastleton House is one of the most intact Jacobean houses in England — an ensemble of 1607-1612 remaining almost unchanged for four centuries. And its history begins with a curious neighbourhood: the land on which it stands was bought from one of the future conspirators of the Gunpowder Plot.
An intact Jacobean house
Chastleton was built from 1607 to 1612 for Walter Jones, a prosperous lawyer of Welsh merchant ancestry. It is a masterpiece of Jacobean architecture: a symmetrical façade, a 22-metre barrel-vaulted long gallery, a Great Chamber of Renaissance spirit, wrought plasterwork. But its interest lies above all in its exceptional preservation: for want of a later great fortune to modernise it, the house has come through the centuries with its interiors, its plasterwork and its period furniture almost unchanged — a true time capsule of the life of a gentry family of the early seventeenth century.
The land of a Gunpowder conspirator
Remarkably, the land of Chastleton was bought in 1602 from Robert Catesby — the very man who would become, three years later, the leader of the Gunpowder Plot (1605), the Catholic conspiracy to blow up Parliament and King James I. Catesby, in debt, sold his lands; his house was razed and Walter Jones built his there. Thus, on the ground that belonged to one of the most famous conspirators in English history rose one of the most peaceful houses in the realm. To see: the 22-metre barrel-vaulted Long Gallery, the Great Chamber of Renaissance spirit, the tapestries, the croquet lawns.
Did you know?
Chastleton is considered the cradle of modern croquet: it was there that Walter Whitmore-Jones codified the game and published, in 1865, in the journal The Field, a set of rules that became the reference for competition croquet. A Jacobean house built on the land of a Gunpowder conspirator is thus, by a curious detour, at the origin of one of the most English lawn sports there is.
Notes
Chastleton House lies at Chastleton, Oxfordshire (near Moreton-in-Marsh); a National Trust property, open to the public. GPS corrected (~51.95, not 52.95). Seasonal hours to check.
Quiz
- From whom was the land of Chastleton bought in 1602?
- From Robert Catesby, future Gunpowder conspirator
- From Shakespeare
- From the king
- What is exceptional about Chastleton?
- Its almost unchanged preservation since the early seventeenth century
- It is a ruin
- It is Roman
- Which sport was codified here?
- Croquet
- Football
- Tennis