Type Stately home Owner Richard Benyon Architectural style Elizabethan architecture Floor count 3 | Country England Phone +44 118 930 2221 Construction started 1558 | |
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Location Englefield, Berkshire, England Address Englefield, Reading RG7 5EN, UK Similar St Nicolas Church - Newbury, West Green House, Houghton Lodge, The Courts Garden, The Hannah Peschar | ||
A work day at englefield house
Englefield House is an Elizabethan country house with surrounding estate at Englefield in the English county of Berkshire, owned by the Benyon family. The gardens are open to the public all year round on particular weekdays and the house by appointment only for large groups.
Contents
A jag at englefield house
Architectural history
The present house was erected before 1558. There were substantial alterations by Thomas Hopper in the 1820s.
Residential history
Englefield House was the home of the Englefield family, supposedly from the time of King Edgar. Sir Thomas Englefield was the Speaker of the House of Commons. In 1559, the house was confiscated from Thomas Englefield's grandson, Sir Francis Englefield, a servant of the Catholic Queen Mary, for "consorting with [the] enemies" of the new Protestant monarch, Elizabeth I.
Popular local tradition is that the Queen granted Englefield to her spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham, although there is no evidence of this. After a succession of short-lived residents, the estate was eventually purchased by John Paulet, 5th Marquess of Winchester, famous for his Civil War defence of Basing House in Hampshire. He retired to Englefield at the Restoration and is buried in the parish church. From his Paulet descendants, the house passed, through marriage, to the Benyon family. Numerous members of the Benyon family have also been Members of Parliament, including the current occupant of the main house of the estate, Richard Benyon. Recent descent has been: Lord Francis Paulet (d. 1696); Francis Paulet (d. 1712); Anne Paulet (d.1729); Powlett Wright the elder (d.1741); Powlett Wrighte the younger (d. 1779); Nathan Wrighte (d. 1789) (descendants of Sir Nathan Wright(e) (1654–1721), Lord Keeper of the Great Seal); Richard Benyon the younger (d. 1796); Richard Benyon De Beauvoir (d. 1854); Richard Fellowes Benyon (d. 1897); James Herbert Benyon (d. 1935); Sir Henry Benyon, Bt. (d. 1959); Vice-Admiral Richard Benyon (d. 1967) and Sir William Benyon (d. 2014).
Englefield inheritance inspired name changes
Film and television
Englefield House has been the filming location for a number of movies, including X-Men: First Class, X-Men: Apocalypse, The King's Speech, and Great Expectations, and The Go-Between, as well as for television series such as Black Mirror, episode Playtest, Agatha Christie's Marple, Agatha Christie's Poirot episode "Taken at the Flood", Hex and the reality television series I Wanna Marry "Harry". It was also used as Auradon Prep in Descendants.
Estate
The estate includes most of the parish. Today it is owned by a family company, the Englefield Estate, covering some 20,000 acres (8,100 ha). Its farm receives agricultural subsidies known as the Single Farm Payment, which all farms in the European Union can apply for under the Common Agricultural Policy.