Not so far away from Greys Court you will find Nuffield Place it was built in 1914 for Sir John Bowring Wimble, a shipping magnate. He died and his widow sold the house to William Morris in 1933. Some of you might ask who was William Morris well he started out making bycicles in the shed of his parents house back in 1893 when he was 16. in 1901 he bought a shop in Oxford High Street buy 1903 he was building motorcycles. In 1909 he set up a garage along Longwall Street in Oxford selling cars and in 1912 he started manufacturing cars under WRM Motors LTD it went on to become Morris Garages and he became Lord Nuffield. He live at Nuffield place from 1933 till he died in 1963 and is buired at Nuffield church not far away. The house was left to the Nuffield Trust who had it for a long time before gifting it to the National Trust who run it now. I visited with my wife back in 2014 and 2015
Nuffield Place
On the way in you pass these brick sheds
Against which you ca see this old deadication plaque
You also pass this old brick garage
Where you can see Lady Nuffields old Wolsley which she used to use
and in the back seat is a picnic basket ready to go out for a sunday picnic
There are alos a lot of old posters looking at
The day we came there were a couple of cars on display, one was this classic Morris Ten Four owned by one of the trust members
The other was in my mind a bit of a joke. A fiberglass replica MGTF which was produced though I could not tell you where
One of the first things you see walking in the house is a Bycicle, might have been one of Lord Nuffield's early bikes
Next place is a small sitting room
You can see a photo of Lord & Lady Nuffield on the mantle piece
Go through the snooker room
Then see the lounge
Where of course you would listten to the radiogram
You might also want to go for dinner.
One of the things on show where the robes they had when attending officail functions
There was an aray of old pre decimal coins on show and if I am right there is 5 shillings 11.5 pence in that little lot
Lord Nuffield Writing desk
and his tinkering couboard, in truth I doubt he used much of the stuff shown here but I recogise most of it being an engineer. In truth he did not sleep well and used to tinker with clock inthe night
Her room had lots of paterns fro making items
A book on things housewifes could do. Think of it Lady Nuffield could afford a few servants but she still did things herself and mended her own stockings
No doubt packed her own case
Last thing we did in the house was look round the gift shop but I only looke at one thing
Out in the garden is a hnad pump with apoor little lost bunny on it, might add next time we visited it had gone
The side of the house with rocery
Thought the weather vane superb butthe the person who built the house was a shipping magnet .The sundial, you can see where it is situated on the house in the first photo
Out in the vegitable garden is a potting shed full woth all the stuff you would think should be there
I'd love a shed like this
The the opposite corner of the garden you see this building, go inside and
you can see an Iron Lung. Lord Nuffield used to make at the Cowley factory them and give them to any hospital that needed one
If you check the link above you can see one like this on the section about Lord Nuffield
A superb view of his garden from one of the upstairs windows
The House from the garden. Hope you enjoyed your look round. Nuffield place is just off the A4310 at the top of Gangsdown Hill near Nettelbed. Its worth a look round if you have a couple of houes and you can get a cup of tea in the tea room there.
There's so much to see here. Quite a remarkable couple.
ReplyDeleteWould love a car like Lady Nuffield's :)
ReplyDeleteQuite a place! Those are impressive cars, and I love the blue plates.
ReplyDeleteIt's a beautiful house. I love the old cars.
ReplyDelete