Garsington Manor

Garsington Manor, in the village of Garsington, near Oxford, England, is a Tudor building, best known as the former home of Lady Ottoline Morrell, the Bloomsbury Group socialite. The house is currently owned by the family of Leonard Ingrams and has been the setting for an annual summer opera season, the Garsington Opera up until 2011 when the opera relocated to Wormsley, the home of Mark Getty in Oxfordshire.

The manor house was built on land once owned by the son of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer, and at one time had the name "Chaucers". Lady Ottoline and her husband, Philip Morrell, bought the manor house in 1914, at which time it was in a state of disrepair, having been in use as a farmhouse.

They completely restored the house in the 1920s, working with the architect Philip Tilden, and creating landscaped Italian-style gardens. The parterre has 24 square beds with Irish yews at the corners; the Italian garden has a large ornamental pool enclosed by yew hedges and set about with statues; beyond, is a wild garden, with lime-tree avenues, shrubs, a stream and pond.

Garsington

Coordinates: 51°42′58″N 1°09′40″W / 51.716°N 1.161°W / 51.716; -1.161

Garsington is a village and civil parish about 5 miles (8 km) southeast of Oxford in Oxfordshire. The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 1,689.

Manors

Garsington Manor House was built in the 16th century and remodelled in the 17th century. It is a Grade II* listed building. It was the home of Lady Ottoline Morrell (1873–1938), and in St. Mary's parish church there is a monument to her carved by the sculptor and typeface designer Eric Gill. The Garsington Opera season was staged at Garsington Manor each summer until 2010.

The Southend part of the village has its own manor house. It is an early 17th-century double-pile Jacobean building with a front of seven bays. It too is a Grade II* listed building.

Parish church

The earliest part of the Church of England parish church of Saint Mary includes the tower, built towards the end of the 12th century in the Transitional style between Norman and Early English. The chancel is pure Early English and was built or rebuilt in about 1300. St Mary's has Decorated Gothic north and south aisles, which were added in the 14th century and have four-bay arcades.