Brightwell Manor
{{Short description|Manor house in Oxfordshire, England}}
{{Use British English|date=April 2023}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2023}}
File:Brightwell Manor behind the church - geograph.org.uk - 2321856.jpg
Brightwell Manor is a country house in the village of Brightwell-cum-Sotwell in Oxfordshire, England.{{cite news |last1=Neate |first1=Rupert |title=Boris Johnson 'agrees to buy' £4m nine-bed Georgian manor house (with moat) |url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/feb/17/boris-johnson-agrees-to-buy-4m-nine-bed-georgian-manor-house-with-moat |access-date=17 February 2023 |work=The Guardian |date=17 February 2023}} The back dates to around the mid-seventeenth century, or possibly earlier as there is a date of 1605 on the rear. The front was built in the mid-eighteenth century.{{Cite web |url=https://britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/101368887-brightwell-manor-brightwell-cum-sotwell |title=Brightwell Manor: A Grade II Listed Building in Brightwell-cum-Sotwell, Oxfordshire |website=BritishListedBuildings.co.uk}} It has been a Grade II listed building since 1952. It is owned by the former British prime minister Boris Johnson and his wife, Carrie Johnson.{{Cite web |date=2023-05-17 |title=Boris and Carrie Johnson move into new £3.8m moated mansion in Oxfordshire – see inside |url=https://www.houseandgarden.co.uk/article/boris-johnson-house-mansion-oxfordshire |access-date=2023-06-08 |website=House & Garden |language=en-GB}}{{Cite web |last=Low |first=Joseph |date=2023-03-27 |title=Boris Johnson Is the New Owner of a 400-Year-Old Manor |url=https://www.luxuo.com/properties/boris-johnson-is-the-new-owner-of-a-400-year-old-manor.html |access-date=2023-06-08 |website=LUXUO |language=en-US}}
History
File:Brightwell Manor House - geograph.org.uk - 921263.jpg
In 1933, the house was purchased by William Ralph Inge, a theologian who was nominated on three occasions for the Nobel Prize in Literature.{{cite news |title=Dr. Inge buys a house:' Gloomy Dean' Acquires Brightwell Manor Dating From 1603. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1933/10/15/archives/dr-inge-buys-a-house-gloomy-dean-acquires-brightwell-manor-dating.html |access-date=18 February 2023 |work=New York Times |date=15 October 1933}} Inge served as Dean of St Paul's Cathedral for over twenty years from 1911 to 1934, becoming well known as the ’’Gloomy Dean’’ on account of his pessimistic views, which included supporting eugenics and opposing democracy.{{Cite ODNB |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/34098 |title=Inge, William Ralph |first=Matthew |last=Grimley |date=2008-01-03}}{{cite web|url= https://www.houseandgarden.co.uk/article/boris-johnson-house-mansion-oxfordshire|first=Tal|last=Dekel-Daks|title=Boris and Carrie Johnson move into £3.8m moated mansion in Oxfordshire|publisher=House & Garden|date=17 May 2023|access-date=22 May 2023}} His wife wrote in her diary "It is a most attractive house but rather small." and that she had written to Paul Edward Paget and his business partner John Seely (later John Seely, 2nd Baron Mottistone) about adding to it. They wanted £2,000, and she wrote that "We really must try to cut them down a bit."{{cite book |last1=Fox |first1=Adam |title=Dean Inge |date=1960 |publisher=J. Murray |pages=236–237 |url=https://archive.org/details/deaninge0000foxa/page/236/mode/1up?view=theater |url-access=registration |language=en}} Dean Inge died there in 1954 (and is buried next door in the churchyard), and the family owned the house until 1971, when his sons sold it. Johnson purchased it in February 2023 for a reported sum of £4{{nbsp}}million.
In 1952, Brightwell Manor was Grade II listed by English Heritage.{{NHLE |num= 1368887 |grade=II |desc=Brightwell Manor |accessdate=17 February 2023}} Most of the house probably dates back to the mid-17th century, and the front is mid-18th century. An extension was added by Inge in the 1950s. Pevsner Architectural Guides describes the house as a "plain late 18th century [sic] brick box", but notes the dating of 1605 on the earliest, rear portion of the house.{{cite book |last1=Tyack |first1=Geoffrey |last2=Bradley |first2=Simon |last3=Pevsner |first3=Nikolaus |author-link3=Nikolaus Pevsner |title=Berkshire |series=Pevsner Architectural Guides: The Buildings of England |date=2010 |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven, US and London |page=210 |url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/520723175 |isbn=978-0-300-12662-4}}{{efn|Pevsner covers Brightwell-cum-Sotwell in the Berkshire volume of the Buildings of England series, , since the area was only transferred to Oxfordshire at the division of the historic counties of England in the 1970s}}
Brightwell Manor has nine bedrooms and is {{Convert | 8128 | sqft | 0}} in total. The house sits in {{Convert | 5 | acre | spell = in}} of grounds, with a moat fed by a natural spring surrounding it on three sides.{{cite news |last1=Churchill |first1=Penny |title=An Oxfordshire country house so beautiful that one famous visitor whipped out his cheque book and tried to buy it on the spot |url=https://www.countrylife.co.uk/property/country-house-beautiful-one-famous-visitor-whipped-cheque-book-tried-buy-spot-207264 |access-date=17 February 2023 |work=Country Life |date=7 November 2019}} The study includes a mural painted by the neo-Romanticist George Warner Allen.
Notes
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References
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External links
- {{commons category-inline|Brightwell Manor}}
{{coord|51.6126|-1.1666|type:landmark_region:GB-OXF|display=title}}
Category:Country houses in Oxfordshire
Category:Grade II listed houses in Oxfordshire