Buscot Park
Campbell's daughter Florence would later be famous as Mrs Charles Bravo, the central character in a Victorian murder case that remains unsolved to this day.
[2] On Campbell's death, in 1887, the house and its estate were sold to Alexander Henderson a financier, later to be ennobled as Baron Faringdon.
[7] Christopher Hussey, writing in 1940, opined that "The architect owed much to Robert Adam and the pattern books of the admirable tradesmen of the day.
Contemporary drawings show that the principal and central entrance originally had a segmented pediment, a motif of the Baroque, long out of fashion by the 1780s.
[4] During the early 1850s, Campbell considered vastly expanding the mansion, and plans were drawn up showing the house transformed to a turreted palace in a loose English renaissance style.
Ultimately, Campbell decided against any grandiose schemes and contented himself by adding a porch, parapet and gabled windows to the neoclassical south front in an incongruous Neo-Renaissance style.
[8] In the 1930s, a time when many country houses were being pulled down, converted to schools or standing empty, Buscot enjoyed a renaissance.
[10] To compensate for the space lost through the demolition, he commissioned the architect Geddes Hyslop to create two flanking pavilions in a loose Palladian style.
These pavilions, in reality rectangular but detached wings, had temple fronts complementing the two principal façades, and gave the side elevations of the mansion added grandeur and interest.
The pavilions are given unity with the mansion by high yew hedges acting as walls, which link the buildings, accentuating the Palladianism of the design.
[17] The saloon, the grandest room in the house, containing the best furnishings, was regarded as neutral territory and would have been used only for large receptions, or entertaining the most important guests.
The original use of the rooms is further confirmed by the design of the second floor, where the windows are of equal size to those below, which indicates that the principal bedrooms were always placed there.
The principal staircase is comparatively small and not as grand and commanding as is often the case in a neoclassical house, where the owners retired upstairs.
The great Baroque houses, built just 50 years earlier, often did not have a principal internal staircase at all, as the owners never left the piano nobile.
Burne-Jones, visiting Buscot, disliked the sequence, and painted a further four scenes to fill the voids between the original canvases.
[21] Despite its woodland setting leading to an informal lake, the water garden is formal in its concept, in direct contrast to the still popular picturesque movement which perhaps reached its zenith just a few years earlier at Cragside, Northumberland.
[22] This was because Peto was influenced by the architect Reginald Blomfield, a disciple of Sir Charles Barry who was responsible for many of the great Italianate houses and formal terraced gardens of the 19th century.
[22] Peto also designed a large entrance court to the mansion, with massive gate piers, intended to create an impressive approach to the house.
[23] Other woodland vistas lead to various eye catching garden statues, including a monumental urn containing the relics of the 2nd Lord Faringdon.
[25] A stipulation in the agreement with the National Trust stated that Buscot would be leased to the Barons Faringdon, enabling them to remain in residence.
The present and 3rd Lord Faringdon, with his wife, not only lives in the house, but is responsible for the day-to-day management and decoration of the mansion.
The present Lord Faringdon has added many works of art to the collection, including contemporary paintings, ceramics, glass and silver.
