Ramsbury Manor is a country house

English country house

The English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a London house. This allowed to them to spend time in the country and in the city—hence, for these people, the term distinguished between town and country...

 at Ramsbury

Ramsbury

Ramsbury is a village in Ramsbury and Axford civil parish in the English county of Wiltshire. The village is in the Kennet Valley near the Berkshire boundary. The nearest towns are Hungerford about east and Marlborough about west. The much larger town of Swindon is about to the north.The civil...

, Wiltshire

Wiltshire

Wiltshire is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset, Somerset, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire. It contains the unitary authority of Swindon and covers...

, in the south of England

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...

, now a Grade I listed building.

The house was built in 1680 by John Webb, a son-in-law of Inigo Jones

Inigo Jones

Inigo Jones is the first significant British architect of the modern period, and the first to bring Italianate Renaissance architecture to England...

. Notable residents have included Sir Francis Burdett

Sir Francis Burdett, 5th Baronet

Sir Francis Burdett, 5th Baronet was an English reformist politician, the son of Francis Burdett and his wife Eleanor, daughter of William Jones of Ramsbury manor, Wiltshire, and grandson of Sir Robert Burdett, Bart...

, a Radical

Radical Whigs

The Radical Whigs were "a group of British political commentators" associated with the British Whig faction who were at the forefront of Radicalism...

 Whig

Whiggism

Whiggism, sometimes spelled Whigism, is a historical political philosophy that grew out of the Parliamentarian faction in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. The whigs' key policy positions were the supremacy of Parliament , toleration for Protestant dissenters, and opposition to a Catholic on the...

 politician, and his daughter Angela Burdett-Coutts

Angela Burdett-Coutts, 1st Baroness Burdett-Coutts

Angela Georgina Burdett-Coutts, 1st Baroness Burdett-Coutts , born Angela Georgina Burdett, was a nineteenth-century philanthropist, the daughter of Sir Francis Burdett, 5th Baronet and the former Sophia Coutts, daughter of banker Thomas Coutts...

 (1814–1906), at one time the richest woman in England.

In 1950, the last of the GWR Manor Class steam locomotive

Steam locomotive

A steam locomotive is a railway locomotive that produces its power through a steam engine. These locomotives are fueled by burning some combustible material, usually coal, wood or oil, to produce steam in a boiler, which drives the steam engine...

s to be built was named Ramsbury Manor. This was withdrawn from service in December 1965.

In 1965 the house was sold with 460 acres of land to an American property dealer for £650,000, causing the Guinness Book of Records for 1966 to describe it as "the most expensive house in Britain".

Ramsbury Manor is now the home of the property tycoon Harry Hyams

Harry Hyams

Harry Hyams is an English millionaire who made his fortune as a speculative property developer. He is best known as the developer of the Centre Point office building in London. He is considered to be reclusive, and is the long-term owner and resident of Ramsbury Manor, near Marlborough in Wiltshire...

.

On 1 February 2006 the house was the scene of a major burglary by the Johnson Gang

The Johnson Gang

The Johnson Gang is the collective name for a group of English criminals from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire who specialised in stealing fine art and antiques from English country houses over a period of 20 years. The goods they stole are estimated to be worth between £30 million and £80 million...

. The gang was caught and convicted, with the prosecutor Paul Reid stating that "This has been described as the most valuable domestic burglary ever committed in this country. The collection is described as priceless. There is a difficulty in putting a value on antiques and antiquities – some of them very precious and very rare – but it is tens of millions of pounds." In August 2008 the gang received long prison sentences.