Buscot Park

About this place

Buscot Park was built between 1780 and 1783 for Edward Loveden Loveden in an austere neoclassical style.

The house stands near Faringdon in Oxfordshire, within what were once the historic bounds of Berkshire.

Its rooms hold the Faringdon Collection, which includes works by Rembrandt and Burne-Jones.

The family still lives there today.

The National Trust has owned the estate since 1956, though the house is managed and occupied by the present Lord Faringdon.

History

The estate changed hands in 1859 when it was sold to Robert Tertius Campbell, an Australian whose daughter Florence later became known as Mrs Charles Bravo, the central figure in an unsolved Victorian murder case. The house later passed to the financier Alexander Henderson, later ennobled as the 1st Baron Faringdon, whose family has held it since. After the 1st Baron's death in 1934, the house was altered and restored to its original 18th-century appearance for his grandson, the 2nd Baron Faringdon.

Architecture

The house was built in a restrained neoclassical style in the early 1780s. In the 1930s the architect Geddes Hyslop carried out extensive alterations to return it to its original 18th-century form for the 2nd Baron Faringdon.

Worth knowing

Florence Campbell, daughter of a former owner, became notorious as Mrs Charles Bravo, whose husband's death by poisoning in 1876 remains one of the great unsolved Victorian murder mysteries. The house also holds works by Rembrandt and Burne-Jones as part of the Faringdon Collection.

Gardens & grounds

The grounds at Buscot Park are open alongside the house and form a significant part of the visit.