Ditchley Park and Rousham House

Enjoy exclusive tours of two outstanding north Oxfordshire Grade I houses and the William Kent garden at Rousham.

Discover Ditchley Park, one of the country’s finest houses, with its rich history as an idyllic retreat for royalty and power since the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Churchill famously used Ditchley as a secret base during the early years of WWII, due to concerns that Chequers and Chartwell were vulnerable to enemy attack. It was here that he met presidential envoy Harry Hopkins in his efforts to win American support for the war. The estate was once the site of a Roman villa. Later it became a royal hunting ground, and then the property of Sir Henry Lee of Ditchley. Lee commissioned the Ditchley Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I which shows her standing on a map of the British Isles, surveying her dominions; one foot rests near Ditchley to commemorate her visit there. The 2nd Earl of Lichfield built the present house, designed by James Gibbs, in 1722. In 1933, the house was bought by Ronald Tree MP, whose wife Nancy Lancaster redecorated it in partnership with Sibyl Colefax. After the war, Tree sold the house and estate to the 7th Earl of Wilton, who then sold it in 1953 to Sir David Wills of the Wills tobacco family. The park is listed Grade II*. 

Rousham House © Jason Ballard, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>;, via Wikimedia Commons

Later, explore Rousham House, built in 1635 by Sir Robert Dormer and still in the ownership of the same family. Remodelled by William Kent in a free Gothic style, with the addition of the wings and stable block, he furnished and decorated much of the interior in the 18th century. His famous gardens, representing the first phase of English landscape design, remain intact and are considered to be one of England’s finest. Our garden tour will include the ponds and cascades in Venus’s Vale, the Cold Bath, the seven arched Praeneste, Townsend’s Building, the Temple of the Mill, and a sham ruin known as the “Eyecatcher”.

Tickets £92 including tea/coffee and biscuits on arrival at Ditchley Park and a two-course pub lunch at the White Horse Inn, Duns Tew. Lunch options to be made available to attendees in August 2026

Header image Ditchley Park © Wentwort12, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>;, via Wikimedia Commons