Cornwell Estate spans 2,000 acres of stunning English countryside between Chipping Norton and Stow-on-the-Wold. Much of the land is farmed and is in high-level stewardship schemes. There are also wetland areas, lakes, spring-fed streams, woodland and an abundance of wildlife including roe deer, badgers, foxes, otters, geese and a family of swans.
At the centre of the estate is the ancient hamlet of Cornwell, which comprises 12 honey-coloured cottages and is mentioned in the Domesday Book. There is also a small church, accessed via an avenue of lime trees, parts of which are Norman in origin.
Cornwell Manor has been owned by the Wards since 1959 and was the childhood home of Rachel, Tracy, Alexander, Jeremy and Benjie. The house is currently lived in by Alexander Ward and his family.
“Oh, to be in England now that April’s there”
Robert Browning (1812-1889)
At first sight, Cornwell Manor is an ordinary mid-18th century squire’s house made of mellow Cotswold stone. The reality is more complex: the plan of the cellars, in conjunction with the semi-circular turret in the west wall, are indicative of an early medieval manor house, the panelling in the dining room is Jacobean (1603-1625) and the courtyard at the back of the house also dates from the 17th century.
It is not known who lived at Cornwell before Henry VIII’s reign (1509-1547), during which time the Annesley family took up residence in what, presumably, was still a medieval manor house. In 1636 it was bought by Sir Thomas Penystone and subsequently lived in by several generations of the Penystone family. From their occupancy there remains a portrait of a Jacobean youth (thought to be the first baronet) in the panelling above the hearth in the dining room. The painting is interesting on two counts: firstly, the boy’s eyes appear to be looking at you no matter where you are in the room, and secondly, as a later owner of the house was told, the painting cannot be moved or the boy will start screaming.
Although improvements were made to the house over the years, it wasn’t until 1750 or thereabouts, that Fairmeadow Penystone enlarged it in order to create its classical south and east fronts. This was a genius move: Cornwell’s exquisite façade has since seen it described as “one of the prettiest houses in England.”
In 1923 the house was bought by Joshua Bower, who sold it to Godfrey Anthony Gillson and his American heiress wife, Priscilla in 1937. The story goes that, after spotting Cornwell from afar, Mrs Gillson promptly rang on the front door bell and announced that she would like to buy the house. On being told that it was not for sale, she is reported to have said, “Everything in this world has its price”. And so it proved.
With her husband away fighting in the War, Mrs Gillson began a massive renovation project, employing Clough Williams-Ellis, the architect who created the Italianate village of Portmeirion in North Wales, to remodel the house, garden and adjoining hamlet. Williams-Ellis drafted in 200 labourers for the job which included altering the back of the house in order to add a Georgian Baroque-style ballroom and laying out a series of nine garden ‘rooms’ including a triangular one with a swimming pool and a pavilion.
His most notable work was at the front of the house, where he terraced the valley and created a formal water garden by harnessing the local stream into a series of neat canals that run, via a cascade, from the village to an ornamental pond on the main lawn.
Being something of a philanthropist, Mrs Gillson decided that she could not modernise the Manor unless the same was done for all of Cornwell’s cottages and farms. Running water, electricity, indoor sanitation and new fire grates were introduced in addition to new, or renovated, doors, windows and porch canopies. The work was carried out by Alfred Groves & Sons, a local firm who also installed a shop with a bow window (which was later awarded a plaque that read: ‘The most picturesque Co-operative store in England and Wales’), a village green with a children’s playground and a bell tower above a newly built village hall that also housed the air raid siren. The whole was enclosed within a curving drystone wall.
Cornwell during the War
In 1941, after the renovations had been completed, Mrs Gillson lent the house – complete with furniture, a butler, and a well-stocked kitchen garden – to the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS). Here, volunteers at the British Army’s women’s branch spent their time either nursing wounded patients back to health or taking a well-earned rest for themselves, often after months of hard work contributing to the War effort.
As one former ATS member (who spent her days collecting wounded soldiers from various local train stations) wrote:
“Those of us that played tennis spent most of our time on the court and could hardly believe our luck to be doing ‘our bit’ in such wonderful surroundings.”
Romance also flourished, evidence of which can be seen in the carved initials on the walls of a gazebo by the bottom lake alongside some more traditional grafitti.
Despite her masterful remodelling of Cornwell, Mrs Gillson is said not to have spent a single night at the house, perhaps because her husband was killed in action in 1944 and it never became the marital home she had envisaged. There is a plaque in the church marking her husband’s death during the War.
Instead, she sold Cornwell to Lord Robert Crichton-Stuart, who lived there until 1959 when Peter Ward, the younger son of the Earl of Dudley, bought it with his wife Claire. During that time, Cornwell operated very much as the grand manor house, as evidenced in the photographs below.
The Ward family have since improved the house, garden and surrounding land: the gardens have been redesigned, while retaining Williams-Ellis’s terracing and water features, the tree-planting scheme instigated by Peter 60 years continues to thrive, and the view from the house, which has been opened up by Alexander, means that you can now see across the lakes to the hills beyond.
