A visit to an historic house at Whittington

Woodpeckers suggested that we go for a jaunt in an early celebration of my imminent birthday. We recently rejoined the wonderful Historic Houses Association so that we could get access to some special old privately owned buildings that weren’t in the National Trust’s control. We’d previously really liked it when visiting such establishments that the owners would be on hand to introduce you to their properties. It brought them alive.

We chose to go to Wittington Court, a couple of miles east of Cheltenham in Gloucestershire. The owners only provide access for a couple of weeks in the spring and then summer. Getting there became quite a country tour in itself as I chose to go by back roads most of which were single track, providing wonderful views of generally unseen fields and woods, valleys and streams and occasional classic country ‘piles’.

Once at Wittington Court, we entered through a massive old oak doorway and then were greeted by Lucy, who’d grown up in this house for part of her life. She was happy to tell us about its history and the fine furniture or decorative objects, in particular the wonderful library of old books that were part of their home.

This house was built soon after 1550 on the site of an older building, immediately next to the 12th century church, while in the field opposite is the site of a Roman villa, near which are Anglo-Saxon remains. There are records that Queen Elizabeth 1 was entertained here in 1592 whilst travelling to visit Sudeley Castle which is only twenty miles to the north. A century later a new wing was added which can be seen on the left side of the front of the house, or the right side of the rear!

We wandered around the house looking at some of the amazingly varied ‘collections’ which included fossils, stones, arrows odd ‘things’. I was  particularly taken by a document called the License of Alienation, granting the land on which the house is built to the original owner, Richard Cotton, in 1545 with the great seal of Henry V111 still attached. 

Upstairs in the main front room of the ‘new’ wing we came across the work room of the current owner Jenny Stringer, who is a wonderful textile designer specialising in wood block prints on fabrics. We spent a long time seated with her chatting and hearing about her work. I encourage you to view this fine short film ‘A life in Print’ from their website, which is a profile of her and her work filmed in the room we sat in.

We then retired to the garden to enjoy excellent cake and tea before I went to record pictures of the exterior of the house, the Tithe Barn and the rare Templar tombstones inside the Saxon church. As we were leaving Jenny presented me with a beautiful potted plant, a streptocarpus, from a cutting of the plant which I’d admired on her windowsill. How kind of her and I’ll treasure it with my other streptocarpus plants. I promised to send her some pictures too. Do check out their website which gives further information. Better still go and visit it yourselves, but you need to get there before the 26th August 2024, or you’ll have to wait until April next year.