BY CHARLES EVANS

Buscot Park is a country house at Buscot near the town of Faringdon in Oxfordshire. Built in the late eighteenth century from his own designs by E.L Townsend, Buscot was, and is now again, a charming building of the Age of Elegance. But nineteenth century additions, including a top-heavy roof, concealed its character. This was removed and the house reduced in size in 1938, the wings now forming a detached dwelling and a small theatre (decorated by the Earl of Huntingdon). The rooms, notable for their Wyatt-type ceilings and chimney-pieces, contain some first-rate pictures and furniture of the period.

Buscot Park is the family home of Lord Faringdon, who looks after the property on behalf of the National Trust, as well as the family collection of pictures, furniture, ceramics and objets d’art, known as the Faringdon Collection, which is displayed in the house.

In 1956 the Buscot Park estate was bequeathed to the National Trust, and the contents of the house were subsequently transferred to the Trustees of the Faringdon Collection.