[1] The mansion was abandoned by its builders in the middle of construction, leaving behind a building that appears complete from the outside, but with floors, plaster and whole rooms missing inside.

The mansion's creator William Leigh bought the Woodchester Park estate for £100,000 in 1854, demolishing the existing house, which had been home to the Ducie family.

[3] Subsequently, he decided to create a deer park, a little distance from the manor house, by both purchase and through the enclosure of common agricultural land in the Inchbrook Valley.

The house being positioned halfway down the length of the valley reduces the dramatic views that would have surely been seen if it had been built on a higher spot.

In any case, they decided to extend and adapt the hunting lodge and lay out a formal garden, and although a precise start date is not known, the house – called Spring Park – was constructed during the 1740s.

[6] Before the visit of George III – and only 30 years after the formal gardens were established – a start was made on extensively re-landscaping the grounds from plans drawn-up by John Speyers, working with Capability Brown.

[7] Not only was the park remodelled but the house too – several times in the 1770s and 1830s (including the reintroduction of a more formal garden area by Humphry Repton) but in 1840 when the 2nd Earl Ducie wanted further alterations and repairs, the estimate was thought to be too great and the estate was sold to William Leigh, a wealthy merchant.

Leigh meanwhile gave land in South Woodchester to a community of Roman Catholic Passionist fathers for a monastery and church.

Wilson wrote:I consider the situation far from the best that might have been selected on the estate; it is low, damp, and has much shut-in on the south, west and north, so that a free circulation of air is impeded.

[11] During the Second World War, the grounds were used as a billet for Canadian and American troops, and the mansion itself used by St Paul's Teacher Training College.

The building has featured on several television programmes, including the ghost hunting show Hauntings and Scariest Places On Earth.

[14] In November 2003, several scenes from an episode of ITV's Magick Eve, starring Emma-Jane Portch and concerning the Gothic subculture, were filmed within the house along with a performance by the UK Goth band Cauda Pavonis.

The library on the ground floor (one of only a few rooms completed within the house) was used as the guest bedroom in which Jonathan Harker (Rafe Spall) was murdered and Abraham Van Helsing (David Suchet) attacked by Dracula.

More recently, opening scenes for HBO's His Dark Materials were filmed with the mansion acting as Jordan College, Oxford.