Chelmsford & District National Trust Supporter Group

Greys Court (NT) is a Tudor country house and garden near Henley-on-Thames in Oxfordshire. Greys Court has been modified over the centuries, creating a patchwork of Medieval, Tudor, Georgian, Victorian and 20th century influences, inside and out. The influential de Grey family held Greys Court when it was first recorded in the Doomsday Book in 1086.

They were soldiers and churchmen. In later centuries the Stapletons converted the house in the fashionable Georgian style, with romantic medieval ruins. This was followed by Victorian alterations. The last owners, the Brunners, renovated both the house and gardens, which is what can be seen today. There is a donkey wheel (1587) in the Well House, built over a 200ft deep medieval well, which is one of the earliest and largest surviving examples of its kind. At the nearby shop is a pump dating from about 1870 which was powered by two horses walking in a circle. There is a Maze, a Chinese-style “Moon-bridge”, and an octagonal stone fountain.

The house as it is today is a patchwork of styles, with a well-stocked kitchen and homely living rooms. There are 16th and 17th century-stained glass windows. The ceiling plasterwork in the Drawing Room is very fine Rococo naturalism. The drawing Room has a high ceiling with bow windows looking out over the top lawn. The kitchen is both the historic core of the House and the heart of the family home.

Stonor Park is an historic country house and private deer park situated in a valley in the Chiltern Hills. It has been the home of the Stonor family for more than 8 centuries. In the house there are family portraits, tapestries, bronzes and ceramics. There is a private chapel built of flint and stone with an early brick tower. The house was probably begun 745 years ago when Sir Richard married his second wife Margaret Harnhull. It has been the family home for more than 8 centuries and is the ancestral home and seat of the Stonor family, Baron Camoys. The current Lord Camoys is William Stonor.

During the English Reformation the Stonor family and many other gentry were recusants. In 1581, the Jesuit priests Edmund Campion and Robert Parsons lived and worked at Stonor Park. Campion’s “Decen Rationes” was printed here on a secret press. On 4th August 1581 a raid on the house found the press. Campion and Parsons had left a few days earlier, but the elderly lady Cecil Stonor, her son John, the Jesuit priest William Hartley, the printers and four servants were taken prisoner, with Hartley being exiled in 1585.

Despite further prosecutions and fines the Stonors remained Roman Catholic throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, enabling many villagers to remain RC by allowing them to attend Mass at their private chapel.

The Stonors family’s steadfast adherence to Roman Catholicism through out the reformation led to their marginalisation and relative impoverishment in subsequent centuries. This has inadvertently resulted in the preservation of the house in a relatively unimproved state. The house was built on the site of a prehistoric stone circle. The remains of this are still visible, although many of the stones were repositioned in the 17th century. Media appearances include “The Living Daylights” (1987), One foot in the Grave (2000), a Christmas Carol (2019), and the Antiques Road Show (2020).