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SHIPTON COURT, 

 OXFORD, . . . 



THE SEAT OF ... 



Sir George Compton Reacfe. 



GARDENS 

 OLD-&NEW 



SHIPTON COURT is situated in a village of the same 

 name, distinguished from the many Shiptons which are 

 dotted over Oxfordshire as Shipton-under-Wychwood. 

 Years ago, before the Clearing Act of 1850, the 

 forest of Wychwood extended down over t^e slopes 

 at the foot of which the village lies. But since the disaf- 

 foresting took place the borders of the forest have gradually 

 receded, until they are at the nearest point some miles from 

 the village itself and the name alone remains to perplex the 

 casual visitor. 



The Court began mainly with the advent of the Stuarts. 

 Part of the house appears to be gooJ work of the sixteenth 

 century, but the main portion of the fabric dates from about 

 the year 1603 the date of Chastleton, near by and was 

 built by one of the family of Lacey, who held it during most 

 of the century. From them it passed, in 1673, to the Reades, 

 whose monuments remain on the walls of the parish church 

 Sir Thomas Reade (Clerk of the Green Cloth to George II.) - 



Sir John Sir Compton Baronet aft^r Baronet and at 

 the present time it is let to Mrs. David Reid. The house 

 is built of the grey stone of the country, and is another 

 illustration of the fact that the builders of those days 

 understood their art. Placed on the slope of a little valley, 

 the house is a story higher on the east than on the 

 west, and springs so straight and steep from the grass alley at 

 its foot, that its sheer front dominates the terraces and 

 fish-ponds like the keep of a fortress. Thick walls and massive 

 foundations endow it with an air of strength and endurance 

 that are yet only the beginning of its charm, for gable after 

 gable stands out clear-cut against the sky, and on each face 

 and at every corner the outline of the house assumes 

 new picturesqueness, angle overlapping angle in a design 

 perpetually broken and yet never irregular. 



And, if one must attempt to analyse the effect of such a 

 building upon the eye, it is found in a beauty that continually 

 claims and holds the attention, that to one pacing below it 



THE WHST PKO.NT 



Country Life" 



