Mapledurham House is an Elizabethan

Elizabethan era

The Elizabethan era was the epoch in English history of Queen Elizabeth I's reign . Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history...

 stately home

Stately home

A stately home is a "great country house". It is thus a palatial great house or in some cases an updated castle, located in the British Isles, mostly built between the mid-16th century and the early part of the 20th century, as well as converted abbeys and other church property...

 located in the civil parish

Civil parish

In England, a civil parish is a territorial designation and, where they are found, the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties...

 of Mapledurham

Mapledurham

Mapledurham is a small village, civil parish and country estate beside the River Thames in Oxfordshire.It should not be confused with the Mapledurham electoral ward of the nearby Borough of Reading, which is a subdivision of that town's suburb of Caversham....

 in the English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 county of Oxfordshire

Oxfordshire

Oxfordshire is a county in the South East region of England, bordering on Warwickshire and Northamptonshire , Buckinghamshire , Berkshire , Wiltshire and Gloucestershire ....

.

History and architecture

The property was first held by Michael Blount

Michael Blount

-Life:He was born in Mapledurham House, Oxfordshire to Sir Richard Blount He was High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire in 1576, then of Oxfordshire in 1586 and 1597. He was elected the Member of Parliament for Winchelsea in March 1553 and Marlborough in 1563...

 and has remained with the family for four hundred years. It was built at the time of the Spanish Armada

Spanish Armada

This article refers to the Battle of Gravelines, for the modern navy of Spain, see Spanish NavyThe Spanish Armada was the Spanish fleet that sailed against England under the command of the Duke of Medina Sidonia in 1588, with the intention of overthrowing Elizabeth I of England to stop English...

 in the classic Elizabethan E-shape. It includes a late 18th century chapel built in the Strawberry Hill

Strawberry Hill House

Strawberry Hill is the Gothic Revival villa of Horace Walpole which he built in the second half of the 18th century in what is now an affluent area of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames in Twickenham, London...

 Gothic style for the Catholic owners of the house. The estate covers much of the village including Mapledurham Watermill

Mapledurham Watermill

Mapledurham Watermill is a historic watermill in the civil parish of Mapledurham in the English county of Oxfordshire. The mill is driven by the head of water created by Mapledurham Lock and Weir and is preserved in an operational state.- History :...

 and part of the church.

Art and Literary associations

The poet Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson...

 was a frequent visitor to the house as he was enamoured of two daughters of the Blount family. The house and surrounding village were used for the filming of the 1976 film of The Eagle Has Landed

The Eagle Has Landed (film)

The Eagle Has Landed is a 1976 film version of the novel The Eagle Has Landed by Jack Higgins. It was directed by John Sturges and starred Michael Caine, Donald Sutherland and Robert Duvall...

 and also for several television series. It is also reputed to have been the inspiration for E. H. Shepard

E. H. Shepard

Ernest Howard Shepard was an English artist and book illustrator. He was known especially for his human-like animals in illustrations for The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame and Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne....

's illustrations of Toad Hall for Kenneth Grahame

Kenneth Grahame

Kenneth Grahame was a Scottish writer, most famous for The Wind in the Willows , one of the classics of children's literature. He also wrote The Reluctant Dragon; both books were later adapted into Disney films....

's The Wind in the Willows

The Wind in the Willows

The Wind in the Willows is a classic of children's literature by Kenneth Grahame, first published in 1908. Alternately slow moving and fast paced, it focuses on four anthropomorphised animal characters in a pastoral version of England...

, although this is also claimed by Hardwick House

Hardwick House

Hardwick House is a Tudor-style house on the banks of the River Thames on a slight rise at Whitchurch-on-Thames in the English county of Oxfordshire. It is reputed to have been the inspiration for E. H...

.

External links

• Mapledurham Estate website
• http://www.touruk.co.uk/houses/houseoxf_maple.htm
• http://www.britainexpress.com/Where_to_go_in_Britain/historic_houses/historic_houses8.htm
• http://thames.me.uk/s01190.htm
• http://www.theheritagetrail.co.uk/stately%20homes/mapledurham.htm