[1] The earliest parts of the present house were probably built after William Dunch of Little Wittenham in Berkshire (now Oxfordshire) purchased the estate in 1551.

[3][4] It was some distance from most of his lands which centred on Wittenham, but he appears to have purchased it because of an interest in ancient monuments such as the Avebury stone circles.

[5] In the 1580s, Dunch passed it on to his younger son, Walter, whose daughter, Deborah, Lady Moody, grew up at the manor before emigrating to America and founding Gravesend in Brooklyn in 1645.

After Walter Dunch's death in 1594,[6] his widow, Deborah, married Sir James Marvyn[7] (who served as High Sheriff of Wiltshire in 1596), and the couple were responsible for a major extension or remodelling of the house around 1601, especially the south range.

[13] He set about the restoration of the house which became an absorbing love as he learnt much about its construction, and claimed to have uncovered the signs of Gothic arches in the north east corner which had been filled in during Elizabethan times.

1951) who later succeeded to the baronetcy, and three daughters, as well as a stepdaughter born to Ruth and her first husband, Dickie Hulse, an RAF fighter pilot killed in action during the Second World War.

They helped in all aspects of the early years of rather amateurish historic house tourism: using a surplus Second World War field telephone between the tour guide (often an au pair with a vivid imagination) and the ticket office, serving teas, and helping themselves to coins from the wishing well to buy ice-creams from Sumbler's, the butchers just outside the gates.

This was due not just to stricter application of legislation, but also the high-profile Destruction of the Country House exhibition held in 1974 by the Victoria and Albert Museum.

[3] After the Brudenell-Bruces left in 1981,[17] it was bought in 1988 by property developer Ken King, who caused local controversy by making changes without planning permission and opening an "Elizabethan experience" visitor attraction which included a faux torture chamber in an old storeroom.