Littlecote House


Littlecote House is a large Elizabethan country house and estate in the civil parishes of Ramsbury and Chilton Foliat in the English county of Wiltshire, near to Hungerford. The estate includes 34 hectares of historic parklands and gardens, including a walled garden from the 17th and 18th centuries. In its grounds is Littlecote Roman Villa.
Littlecote House is a Grade I listed building. It is now a hotel and leisure centre.

History

The first Littlecote House was built during the 13th century. A medieval mansion, it was inhabited by the de Calstone family from around 1290. When William Darrell married Elizabeth de Calstone in 1415, he inherited the house. Sir George Darrell went on to build the Tudor mansion. King Henry VIII is said to have courted Jane Seymour at the house; her grandmother was Elizabeth Darrell. Elizabeth's half-niece, also Elizabeth Darrell, a former maid of honour to Catherine of Aragon, had a celebrated affair with the poet Sir Thomas Wyatt.
Sir John Popham bought the reversion of Littlecote, and succeeded to it in 1589; he built the present Elizabethan brick mansion, which was completed in 1592. James I, Charles II, and William of Orange stayed there, William on his march from Torbay to London in the Glorious Revolution. Popham's descendants, the Pophams and the Leyborne Pophams owned the house until the 1920s. Littlecote played a role in the history of deaf education: John Wallis and William Holder taught Sir John's great grandson, Alexander Popham, to speak. The Leyborne Pophams refurbished much of the house in 1810. They retained it until 1929, when the house was purchased by Sir Ernest Salter Wills Bt, who was a member of the Wills tobacco family dynasty, and a director of Imperial Tobacco.
During the Second World War, 1941–42, the house was the headquarters of 34th Army Tank Brigade, commanded by Brigadier J Noel Tetley. Then, in September 1943, the US 101st Airborne Division requisitioned part of the house, and it became home to regimental staff, regimental headquarters company, and headquarters company of the 1st Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment. The house provided office space and sleeping quarters for 506th officers, with the best rooms being allocated to Col. Robert F. Sink, regimental commander, and Lt. Col. Charles H. Chase, his executive officer. The colonel used the library as his office, and a memorial plaque can now be found in this room. From airfields in this area, including Ramsbury just to the west, the Airborne Division took off during the night of 5 June 1944, the eve of D-Day, as part of the invasion of Normandy. Easy Company from this regiment have become famous through the book and TV mini-series Band of Brothers. All other ranks lived in Nissen huts built alongside the main drive between the house and the east lodge.
After the war, the owner's younger son, Major George Seton Wills, inherited the estate and sold the house to the entrepreneur Peter de Savary in 1985. On New Year's Eve 1992–93, the grounds were used for an all-night rave run by Fantazia.
Warner Holidays acquired the house and estate in 1996, and now operates it as a country house hotel and resort.

Wild William Darrell

The last of the Darrell owners is connected with several scandals and the house's resident ghost story. William Darrell's father had left the house to his mistress Mary Danyell, but Darrell was able to recover it when he came of age in 1560. He spent lavishly, left his debts unpaid, and went to law with most of his neighbours, acquiring enemies in the process. Sir John Popham was his relative and lawyer.
He had an affair with Anne Hungerford the wife of Sir Walter Hungerford, his neighbour; when Sir Walter sued for divorce, she was acquitted, and Sir Walter sent to prison. Some years later, Mother Barnes, a midwife from Great Shefford, recalled being brought in 1575 to the childbed of a lady, with a gentleman standing by who commanded her to save the life of the mother, but who threw it into the fire. Barnes did not name or indicate either Darrell or Littlecote, but his enemies quickly ascribed this murder to him.
Darrell's financial troubles increased, and he mortgaged Littlecote, first to Sir Thomas Bromley, and then to Popham. He moved to London and spent some time in a debtors' prison, but died suddenly in 1589 on a visit to Littlecote. Legend has it that whilst hunting, the ghost of the murdered newborn appeared to him, causing his horse to shy and throw him. Darrell is said to haunt the site of his death, known as Darrell's stile, although one famed clairvoyant, Tom Corbett, detected nothing of the sort. But he reported to author Peter Underwood that he did see "a ghost in the garden, a beautiful woman whom he later recognised from a portrait in the house as Mrs Leybourne Popham", and another ghost in the Chinese bedroom he termed a "busybody", a word Mrs. Wills, wife of the then owner Major George Wills, agreed described the presence in that room. Another possible ghost is that of a past tenant, Gerard Lee Bevan, who lived at Littlecote after World War I and later served time for embezzlement. His presence has been felt in the Long Gallery.
The sale of the estate was possibly fictitious to avoid confiscation if Darrell was ever convicted, and that Popham kept Littlecote from Darrell's heirs. John Aubrey tells that Littlecote was a bribe to Popham as his judge in a criminal case, which is impossible: Darrell was not charged or tried, and Popham was not yet a judge. Nevertheless, this story was borrowed by Sir Walter Scott, in Rokeby, and by Charles Dickens, in A Tale of Two Cities.

Littlecote Roman Villa

In its grounds is Littlecote Roman Villa, a Roman winged corridor villa and associated religious complex. It has been archaeologically excavated under the direction of Bryn Walters, and is on display to the public.

Location

Littlecote House is located on the banks of the River Kennet between the villages of Ramsbury and Chilton Foliat, and about two miles northwest of the small Berkshire town of Hungerford. It is also in the heart of the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
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Nearby places of interest: Crofton Pumping Station, Wilton Windmill