Oving House

Oving House, although quite large, was never the Manor of Oving, but according to the Doomsday Book it was owned by one of the two joint squires of the village. The village itself (the name then pronounced “Ooving”) was a Saxon settlement.

The house was first built some time in the seventeenth century as a farmhouse, in the local clunch stone, and its bays are still visible as you drive in to the north side, although the old gables were subsequently hidden. It was substantially enlarged in the 1740s by a local MP and entrepreneur, Charles Pilsworth, whose wife had inherited it as her share of the Nether Winchendon estate. He added a Georgian layer of handsome state rooms, facing onto the Vale of Aylesbury, notably including an exceptional plasterwork ceiling of French design in the drawing room which still survives. The architect of this, as well as of the nearby redbrick Coachhouse, is unknown, although William Smith of Warwick has been suggested, as well as Thomas Harris, who had designed the Aylesbury Town Hall. It was further enlarged with two wings in the late 18th century.

In the nineteenth century it was let for many years, and was then bought in 1900 by another entrepreneur, Henry Yates Thompson, variously a LIberal MP, Secretary to the Viceroy of Ireland, and the owner of Pall Mall Gazette, who became known for his exceptional collection of illuminated manuscripts. He only used Oving as his summer retreat, and made significant garden improvements, notably the terracing of the south front and the Edwardian lily pond. He also installed the first bathroom in the house.

In 1954, after passing to his niece, Rosemary Elliot, the house was bought by another press proprietor, my father Michael Berry, who had just inherited the Daily Telegraph newspaper from his father Lord Camrose. He and my mother, Lady Pamela Berry (the daughter of the famous Lord Chancellor FE Smith; a biography is shortly to appear on her) redecorated the interior, with the help of the decorator Felix Harbord, with exuberant Rococo plasterwork and panelling, Harbord often recycling skilfully from houses which were being demolished elsewhere in the 1950s.

Since then it has been lived in by my family. It has an interestingly ecclectic collection of contents, conjuring the eighteenth century with various important Georgian and Palladian pieces of furniture which demarcate the main reception rooms, but softened in a comfortable post-Victorian style. It also has a collection of family portraits, international paintings and works of art. The house is still very much a home, it is littered with family photographs and boasts a lavishly furnished Victorian dolls house.