Manor
In 1005 Aethelmaer gave an estate
comprising the whole of Eynsham to his newly
founded abbey there. After the Conquest the
abbey's lands were used to endow the bishopric
of Dorchester, later transferred to Lincoln, and
in 1086. EYNSHAM manor was held of the
bishop of Lincoln by Columban, a monk. After
a period of uncertainty (fn. 67) the re-established abbey held the estate undisturbed until the Dissolution. The manor included Tilgarsley and
Newland, and in later times was sometimes
described as the manors of EYNSHAM, TILGARSLEY, and NEWLAND. (fn. 68)
In 1538 the abbey was dissolved (fn. 69) and in 1539
Eynsham was granted to Sir" George Darcy.
Darcy sold it in 1543 to Sir Edward North who
surrendered it to the Crown in 1545. It was
granted in that year to Edward Stanley, earl of
Derby (d. 1572), as part of an exchange to settle
the family's debts. (fn. 70) On the earl's death Eynsham, subject to the dower of his relict Mary (d.
1580) who married Henry Grey, earl of Kent, (fn. 71)
passed in accordance with a settlement to his
second son Sir Thomas Stanley (d. 1576) and
then in moieties to Sir Thomas's relict Margaret
for life and son Edward. (fn. 72) Margaret married
William Mather who sold her interest in Eynsham to Sir Thomas Peniston of Bampton, who
insisted on a strict partition of the manor; the
life interest continued until 1595 or later. (fn. 73)
Edward, who married Lucy Percy and became a
knight of the Bath in 1603, (fn. 74) was probably the
Edward Stanley esquire who with his wife was
living at Eynsham in 1582. Also living there
then was Sir Edward Stanley, (fn. 75) possibly the
third son of the earl of Derby (d. 1572); although he is thought to have been knighted only
in 1586, he is alleged to have succeeded Sir
Thomas at Eynsham and to have died there in
1609, but the evidence is conflicting. (fn. 76) Other
Stanleys were also concerned in Eynsham: in
1584 William Stanley, younger son of Henry,
earl of Derby (d. 1593), caused a disturbance in
Eynsham church by seeking to prevent Sir
Thomas Peniston's son from using the manorial
pew; he was still in Eynsham in 1586. (fn. 77) William
became earl of Derby in 1594 on the death of
his brother Ferdinando: an agreement that
Eynsham should revert after Edward Stanley's
death to Ferdinando's daughters seems to have
been overturned by an Act of 1606, under which
Eynsham was to revert to the earldom. (fn. 78) Sir
Edward Stanley, son of Sir Thomas (d. 1576),
survived until 1632; (fn. 79) meanwhile the reversion
was settled on Charlotte de Tremoille on her
marriage with James, son of William, earl of
Derby. (fn. 80) In 1634 the manor was confirmed to
James, (fn. 81) who in 1642 succeeded to the earldom.
In 1649 he forfeited his estates as a delinquent,
and parliament granted Eynsham to Col. Henry
Marten, the regicide. (fn. 82)
In 1651 Marten sold Eynsham to Orlando
Bridgeman and others acting for Charlotte,
countess of Derby, (fn. 83) who a year later was appealing for discharge from the sequestration on
her Eynsham estate. (fn. 84) In 1653 the estate was
granted to her son-in-law Henry Pierrepont,
earl of Kingston-upon-Hull, and in that year he
and Charlotte sold the furze and bushes on
Eynsham heath to Thomas Jordan, a Witney
clothier; in 1657 Jordan purchased the rest of
Eynsham. (fn. 85) He was succeeded in 1666 by his
son John (d. 1692), whose son Thomas (d.
1716) (fn. 86) heavily mortgaged the estate to Sir
Robert Jenkinson of Walcot. By 1714 Jordan
owed c. £2,500 and was pleading for time in the
vain hope that his coal mining on the heath
would prove profitable. (fn. 87) Henry Perrott of
North Leigh had acquired the mortgage by 1717
and in 1719 bought the freehold. (fn. 88) He died in
1740 and his daughters Cassandra and Martha
sold Eynsham in 1763 to James Lacy. (fn. 89)
Lacy, a co-patentee with David Garrick of the Drury Lane theatre, died in 1774. (fn. 90) His son
Willoughby fell into financial difficulties (fn. 91) and
in 1778 sold the estate, including the newly built
Eynsham Hall, (fn. 92) to Robert Langford, a London
auctioneer and newspaper proprietor. (fn. 93) On
Langford's death in 1785 the estate was put up
for sale but seems to have been retained by his
brother-in-law and chief legatee James Duberley, to whom Langford had mortgaged Eynsham
in 1782. (fn. 94) On Duberley's death c. 1790 his
estates passed to trustees for his five daughters,
who in 1799 sold Eynsham to the Revd. John
Robinson, formerly archdeacon of Armagh. (fn. 95) In
1805 Robinson sold the estate to Thomas
Parker, younger brother of George, earl of Macclesfield. (fn. 96)
The Parkers retained Eynsham until 1862. (fn. 97)
Thomas succeeded to the earldom in 1842 and
his son Thomas Parker seems to have lived at
Eynsham (fn. 98) until succeeding to the earldom in
1850. On the death in 1862 of his mother Eliza,
dowager countess of Macclesfield, Eynsham was
sold (fn. 99) to Sir Thomas Bazeley, M.P., a prominent Lancashire cotton manufacturer. (fn. 1) Bazeley
sold the estate in 1866 to James Mason, (fn. 2) a
mining engineer who had made his fortune in
Portugal. (fn. 3) The Mason family retained the estate
in 1983; James (d. 1903) was succeeded by his
son James Francis (d. 1929) and grandson
Michael (d. 1982). (fn. 4) Residual manorial rights
were finally extinguished by agreement in the
1930s. (fn. 5)
The Stanleys and their successors held Eynsham and Shifford manors for a fee farm rent of
£70 15s. 8d. payable to the Crown, but when
they sold Shifford in 1600 they transferred the
charge entirely to Eynsham. (fn. 6) In the 17th century the Crown sold the fee farm, which by the
early 18th century was payable to Peter Joy. (fn. 7)
Later, when it was sometimes known as Joy's
charity, the rent was paid to Sion College,
London, as trustees of Joy's school. (fn. 8)
After the Dissolution the Stanleys were sometimes resident in part of the abbey buildings. (fn. 9)
After the death in 1632 of Sir Edward Stanley
lords were usually non-resident, although
Thomas Jordan (d. 1716), built a house, perhaps
intended as a manor house, on Eynsham heath.
In 1696 the new building seems to have inspired
a riot when 200 local men forced Jordan's wife
Ursula to seek refuge there, threw rabbits at her
taken from a nearby warren, and threatened to
destroy both house and warren. (fn. 10) Presumably
the house or its associated enclosure was seen as
a threat to the villagers' common rights; the
warren, and therefore the house, seem to have
been in Woodleys coppice, which soon acquired
the alternative title Freeberry coppice. (fn. 11) The
house seems to have been demolished, for there
is no later record of the Jordans living in Eynsham, and in 1769 there was no building near
Woodleys nor anywhere else on the heath
proper. (fn. 12)
The first Eynsham Hall was built by James
Lacy (d. 1774) (fn. 13) or his son Willoughby: (fn. 14) when
the estate was sold to Robert Langford in 1778
it included a newly built mansion, to which,
before 1782, Langford made several additions. (fn. 15)
The house, 'yet building' after his death in 1785,
stood in a large park created by the inclosure of
the heath in 1781. It was described as tolerably
planned and built and profusely furnished with
the spoils of the auction room, (fn. 16) an allusion to
Langford's principal occupation. Before 19th-century alterations the house comprised a two-storeyed block with east and west cross wings,
the south facade dominated by a large classical
portico. (fn. 17) Its style, and that of several fireplaces
preserved in the later Eynsham Hall, was that of
Robert Adam; Adam is not known to have
worked at Eynsham but was an acquaintance of
the Lacys, rebuilding Drury Lane theatre for
James Lacy and also working for Garrick. (fn. 18)
Thomas Parker lived at Eynsham Hall in the
early 19th century, but by 1814 he was leasing it
as a hunting box to Sir John Jervis, (fn. 19) and in the 1820s John Ruxton had the hall. (fn. 20) By the 1830s
the Parkers were again sometimes resident, (fn. 21)
and the remarriage of Thomas Parker in 1842
may have been the motive for an enlargement of
the hall in 1843 to the designs of Sir Charles
Barry. The principal change was the addition of
an upper storey over the whole house, and Barry
also built a north porch and may have been
responsible for the stone balustrading of the
garden terrace and the arms of the Parkers
carved in the head of the portico. (fn. 22)
The hall was much altered in the early 1870s
by James Mason, to the designs of Owen Jones
(d. 1874), whose earliest plans date from 1871;
the builder was a local man, Walter Wilkins. (fn. 23)
Jones added a fourth floor to the existing structure, a west wing which included a conservatory,
and an east wing containing a billiard room,
fernery, and kitchens. The north porch and the
hall to which it gave access were rebuilt, but
plans to add a single storey ballroom projecting
from the south portico were not fulfilled, perhaps because of Jones's death. Jones redesigned
the interiors of the principal rooms, and some of
his designs are preserved in the present house. (fn. 24)
In 1878 the house was described as magnificently furnished. (fn. 25)
Eynsham Hall was demolished by J.F. Mason
shortly after his father's death in 1903, and a
new and larger house on the same site was
completed in 1908 to the designs of Ernest (later
Sir Ernest) George. (fn. 26) The house is late Elizabethan in style and built in local grey stone with
yellow Taynton stone dressings. It was built on
the grand scale, and its equipment included its
own waterworks, gas plant, electricity generating station, and private telephone links with all
parts of the estate. Few features of the earlier
hall were retained, but there are several 18th century fireplaces, and two rooms were designed
to house Jones's interiors. The outbuildings
include a rustic hexagonal game larder designed
by C.H. Howell in 1883. (fn. 27)
The owner from 1929, Michael Mason, disliked the new hall, describing it as a 'vulgar
barracks', (fn. 28) and from the late 1930s the family
occupied Scott's House (formerly Home Farm)
in the grounds. During the Second World War
the hall was leased first to Barclays Bank, then to
the Air Ministry, and from 1946 until 1981 it
was used by the Home Office as a police training college. (fn. 29) Thereafter it was used as an accountancy training college and conference centre.
The park, (fn. 30) comprising c. 780 a. within a belt
of trees, was laid out immediately after the
inclosure of the heath. The Act of 1781 empowered Robert Langford to inclose only 472 a. but
from the outset the park was much larger, (fn. 31)
presumably because part of the heath was al-ready free of common rights. The Act also
empowered Langford to lay out a road from
Lodge Bottom to the Witney turnpike and to
line it with ornamental trees, suggesting that, as
later, the formal approach to the hall was by the
south drive. Peripheral entrance lodges were
built. Blindwell coppice, the site of the hall, was
grubbed up almost entirely and great lawns laid
out to the north and south. (fn. 32) The west side of
the park was preserved as woodland, Woodleys
coppice (c. 210 a.), and the original garden also
included ornamental clumps, a fishpond, and a
small lake south-west of the hall; near the lake
was a building called the Hermitage, and west of
that a monument which was the focus of several
paths. (fn. 33) Much of the land within the ring fence
continued to be farmed, chiefly from buildings
(later Home Farm) in a circle of trees south-east
of the hall. Home Farm was rebuilt in the mid
19th century. (fn. 34) The north lodge was rebuilt in
1845 to the design of Richard Tress and the
south lodge, also of the mid 19th century, was
by Charles Moreing. (fn. 35)
In 1862 the park proper comprised 232 a., and
the remaining land within the ring fence was
farm land. Woodleys coppice had been reduced
to 168 a., while near the house were pleasure
gardens, a pheasantry, a conservatory, and a
grotto. (fn. 36) Changes during the brief occupancy of
Sir Thomas Bazeley (1862-;6) included the rebuilding of the conservatory, and the grubbing
up of c. 150 a. of woodland, mostly in Woodleys
coppice: (fn. 37) Bazeley was long remembered locally
for his hatred of holly. (fn. 38)
Soon after 1866 James Mason created a large
lake in Black Pit vale, south-east of the hall; (fn. 39) the
lake was used to supply water to the estate and
surrounding villages. Mason planted extensively
with American redwoods and other imported
trees, and created new areas of woodland at
Lodge hill and around the lake: (fn. 40) the landscape
designer was probably Robert Marnock. (fn. 41) Mason may also have added a parterre with or namental ponds on the south side of the house
and a walled courtyard on the north; both were
altered before 1876, (fn. 42) possibly by Owen Jones
after he had altered the proportions of the hall.
When the new hall was built the terraces, courtyard, and pleasure gardens were redesigned,
apparently by Thomas Garner. (fn. 43) After much
tree felling during the World Wars Michael
Mason replanted heavily, mostly with oaks. (fn. 44)