[1] Members of the Bloomsbury Group, the aristocratic Ottoline, and her wealthy husband Philip, were friends with an array of artists, writers and intellectuals, D. H. Lawrence, T. S. Eliot, E. M. Forster, Bertrand Russell, Aldous Huxley, Virginia Woolf ,Siegfried Sassoon, Stanley and Gilbert Spencer being among the visitors to their house.

[5] Garsington became a haven for the Morrells’ friends, including D. H. Lawrence,[6] Siegfried Sassoon,[7] Edward Sackville-West,[8] Lord David Cecil,[9] Lytton Strachey,[10] Aldous Huxley,[11] Mark Gertler,[12] Bertrand Russell,[13] Virginia Woolf,[6] T. S. Eliot, E. M. Forster and Walter de la Mare.

[16] Aldous Huxley spent some time at Garsington before he wrote Crome Yellow, a book which contains a caricature based on Ottoline for which she never forgave him.

His pen portrait of her, written after their first meeting in 1915, summarises the aspects of her character which both attracted and repelled; "[She] is quite an incredible creature - arty beyond the dreams of avarice and a patroness of literature and the modern.

The savagery of the depiction caused a decades-long breach in their friendship, and Philip Morrell threatened to sue Lawrence's publishers.

It reeked of the bowls of potpourri and orris root which stood on every mantelpiece, side table and window-sill and of the desiccated oranges, studded with cloves, which Ottoline loved making".

[34] A number of other buildings on the estate, and landscaping features in the gardens have Grade II listings including the stables,[35] the bakehouse,[36] the gates at the forecourt to the manor,[37] the pool, a summer house and statuary[38] and an 18th-century dovecote.