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As the country-house market winds down for Christmas, two historic properties—one of which was home to the singer Kate Bush-may catch the eye of London buyers looking to move to the country next year

- Penny Churchill

BEFORE the introduction of 20thcentury boundary changes, the tiny rural parish of Broughton Poggs in west Oxfordshire occupied a thin sliver of land between Broadwell, Langford and the county border with Gloucestershire, stretching for three miles from the high downland of the Cotswolds in the north-west to the village beside the Broadwell brook in the south-east. From the 18th century, the village itself effectively merged with neighbouring Filkins and the two parishes were formally united in 1954. Throughout that time, the only building of gentry status in Broughton Poggs was Broughton Hall, an imposing country house set in extensive grounds on the south-western edge of the village, which was adopted as the manor house in the 17th century and later enlarged.

According to British History Online, Lord Hastings, later Earl of Huntingdon, sold Broughton manor to Thomas Cromwell, later (briefly) Earl of Essex, in 1537. Following Cromwell’s downfall and execution in 1540, the manor reverted to the Crown and, in 1541, a life interest was granted to Anne of Cleves by Henry VIII as part of her divorce settlement. In 1545, the reversion was sold to Sir Thomas Pope of Wroxton, who owned a large estate in Broadwell. Broughton then passed through the Godfrey, Mowse and West families, before being sold in 1670 to William Goodenough, scion of a prominent Broadwell family.

In 1747, Broughton Poggs manor was acquired by the distinguished naval officer William Burnaby, who was knighted in 1754 and served as High Sheriff of Oxfordshire in 1755. In 1824, Sir William’s grandson sold the estate to the Revd Bowen Thickens, after which it passed through the Thickens family to John Thickens, who was declared bankrupt in 1886. In 1902, Sir Charles Murray Marling sold the estate to Robert Trollope, who sold it in turn to John Norman Hardcastle; his executors offered Broughton Hall with a few acres of land for sale in 1950 and the rest of the estate was broken up.