Tadmarton House and much of its surrounding land sit on a hill of clay, so surface water drainage was a problem. Working to a specification drawn up by the Environment Agency, we dug and planted two reed ponds at the bottom of the hill and lay piping to draw the surface water from the site to the ponds. The water is filtered first through one pond and then the other via a gravel bed. As far as we know this was the first ecological project of its type in Oxfordshire.
When we bought Tadmarton House the owner had already gained outline planning approval for a retirement village to be built on six acres of its land. We wanted to attract one of the country’s big house builders so we negotiated with the planning authority to make some important alterations and we won approval for 54 retirement homes. We carried out all the infrastructure work which included building the access roads and laying one and a half miles of main drainage to Bloxham village as well as dealing with the surface water drainage. In 2000 we sold the site, now known as Tadmarton Park, to Westbury Homes.
We held on to an area nearest the house and built three new courtyard houses on this site. One of these houses was close to a barn adjacent to Tadmarton House. We restored the barn and linked it to this house so making a bigger family home and one where the architecture is sensitive to Tadmarton House.
Tadmarton House – Grade II Listed Italianate Villa in North Oxfordshire. Fully restored in 1999.