It was on a plot of land close to the present Badgemore House that Jennings replaced a farmhouse with an impressive mansion that was reputedly built with the same bricks as those used in the construction of St Paul’s and brought to Henley by river. From Jennings’s death in 1719 until the late 1800s the property had a number of owners, among them Joseph Grote, who was appointed High Sheriff of Oxfordshire in 1786 and served as commissioner for Henley Bridge, which was opened in the same year. In 1883, the house and land were bought by Richard Ovey, the founder of the Henley Show, who came from a long- established local farming family. Ovey decided to remodel and enlarge the house and commissioned celebrated architect John Norton to redesign it. A photograph taken in 1886 shows a grand three-storey building with a brick façade and nine bays. The pedimented
CLOCKWISE FROM BOTTOM LEFT: THE HOUSE INTERIOR 1880, EXTERIOR 1880, ROBERT EDWIN MCALPINE, ENTRY FOR WILLIAM HEPBURN MCALPINE ON THE FAMILY TREE KEPT AT FAWLEY HILL - COURTESY OF LADY MCALPINE
8 / THE LIMES
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