Introduction
The house is set on a large stepped platform within an extensive landscaped park on the hillside south of the village centre. Sloping fields rise up to the grounds of Hoddington House. This formal parkland enables long views to the house from the village, particularly along Weston Road, and from the opposite hillside. The house and its parkland are imposing features that dominate the setting of the village and contribute significantly to its distinctive character and visual interest.
The village of Upton Grey lies along Old Travel Way - the course of the old Roman road linking Silchester to Chichester, which crosses the park in a north west south easterly direction between the mansion and the farm.
The mansion is a large building, generally constructed of red brick walling, and with considerable 19th century additions and alterations, including those offices generally associated with a 19th century mansion :
A walled kitchen garden
Glasshouse
Orchard
Coachouse
Farm buildings located around a large courtyard
The house is set on a large stepped platform within an extensive landscaped park on the hillside south of the village centre. Sloping fields rise up to the grounds of Hoddington House. This formal parkland enables long views to the house from the village, particularly along Weston Road, and from the opposite hillside. The house and its parkland are imposing features that dominate the setting of the village and contribute significantly to its distinctive character and visual interest. Extensive landscaped grounds survive and remain within their originally planned surroundings at Upton Grey House, Upton Grey Lodge, Hoddington House and the Manor House. (see Conservation Area Appraisal April 2004)
The mansion is approached from the east, between the parkland to the north, and the walled garden and farm buildings to the south. The house is surrounded by its parkland, and groups and avenues of mature, native trees and thick hedges define old field boundaries, Today the garden has fine mature specimen trees including cedar, a fine weeping ?birch in the south west garden and a number of columnar conifers. (No tree schedule but trees worthy of identification) This garden has been extended south west into the parkland making an L- shaped lawn with a pool at the north western end enclosed by a hedge. (See appendix II for images). A low yew hedge encloses a circular lawn over which long views are afforded to Upton Grey and surrounding area. A long avenue running south east from the house links with a footpath connecting the chalk pits with the farm lane. In 2000 planning permission was granted to the Trustees of The Stockdale Settlement to convert redundant farm buildings to four commercial units & five dwellings with a new access and the orchard was included, and although the walled garden remains with small glass houses, it is no longer used for the production of vegetables and fruit for the house.
Significance:
The house and its parkland are imposing features that contribute significantly to its distinctive character and visual interest of Upton Grey village. Extensive landscaped grounds survive and remain within their originally planned surroundings.
Conservation Area of Upton Grey
AONB No
SSSI No
SINC No
TPO etc No
Research: EM Consultants for Basingstoke & Deane: December 2009
Detailed description contributed by Hampshire Gardens Trust 12/04/2015
- Visitor Access, Directions & Contacts
- History
Hoddington Park is located in the southern quadrant of Upton Grey village, some 5 miles south east of Basingstoke. The original house was erected on the site of a religious house called Endynon, a monastery attached to the Abbey of Beaulieu in the New Forest. At the time of the Domesday Survey, there were two former Saxon manors, with a combined population of around 175. These have since merged to create Upton Grey. The principal manor was Hoddington (Odingetone), held by St Swithin's Church in Winchester. The other, Upton (in Old English ‘Aoltone' possibly meaning ‘higher farm') was held by Hugh de Port. The descendants of the de Port family remained the overlords of Upton for two centuries, by which time it had become the principal manor of the settlement.
In 1539, the monastery of St Swithuns was surrendered to the crown and Hoddington Manor appears to have been granted to Thomas White, in whose family it remained until 1637, when William White sold the manor to Brian Matthew. In 1695 his wife Jane conveyed it to here 2nd husband John Limbrey. From that time it remained in the Mathew Limbrey-Sclater family until the 20th century. Hoddington House was built In the 1740s by John Limbrey, and was described by Prosser in 1834, as a late 17th century mansion on an ‘estate of 1200 acres of land including 200 acres of coppice, 50 acres of meadow and pleasure grounds - the latter being ornamented with some fine timber and plantations'. In the 1880s William Lutely-Sclater enlarged the mansion and the grounds to 100 acres, and in 1887 his son George Limbrey Sclater-Booth was raised to the peerage as Baron Basing of Basing Byflete and of Hoddington.
Hoddington House remained the seat of Lord Basing but appears not to have been his residence between 1930 and 1945 since it was rented out during that time. It was sold in 1945 and later became the residence of Sir Edmund Stockdale - Lord Mayor of the City of London in 1959 - and whose family still manitains an interest in the estate. It stands on the high ground which rises immediately south-west of the village, in a fine open park, from the slopes of which wide views reach away west and south over Herriard and Ellisfield to Farleigh Wallop and Dummer, and to the east over Long Sutton and Crondall to the distant Surrey hills.
Detailed history contributed by Hampshire Gardens Trust 12/04/2015
- Features & Designations
Designations
Conservation Area
- Reference: Upton Grey
- Key Information
Type
Park
Purpose
Ornamental
Principal Building
Domestic / Residential
Survival
Extant
Open to the public
Yes
Civil Parish
Upton Grey