Kiddington Hall

[1] The Reverend Thomas Warton, a fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, who was rector of Kiddington for 20 years and poet laureate from 1785, pictures the coming of spring on the estate in his April Ode with "swallows skimming the village green and rooks swarming in the oak trees round the manor house".

In 1850 he commissioned the architect Sir Charles Barry to remodel the house in his trademark Italianate architecture style, build a new stable courtyard adjoining the hall to the north, and create formal terraced gardens to the south and west, overlooking Brown's park.

[1] Beyond the Victorian orangery to the south, a gate leads to the square-towered 14th-century church of St Nicholas, where stained-glass windows commemorate the former High Sheriff of Oxfordshire Henry Lomax Gaskell and his wife, Alice, whose family lived at the Hall from 1855 to 1953.

In the run-up to the 1955 general election, Lawrence was the Liberals' prospective candidate in Eye, but he was appointed to a government commission and withdrew.

In September 2009 Maurice placed the entire Kiddington Estate on the market for £42 million, his divorce seemingly being the reason for the sale.