Rotherfield Greys Court
Has been described as a Possible Masonry Castle, and also as a Possible Fortified Manor House
There are masonry ruins/remnants remains
| Name | Rotherfield Greys Court |
| Alternative Names | |
| Historic Country | Oxfordshire |
| Modern Authority | Oxfordshire |
| 1974 Authority | Oxfordshire |
| Civil Parish | Rotherfield Greys |
Part of the curtain wall and two rectangular towers of a small castle of mid-fourteenth century. One tower is set obliquely at the N angle, the other tower is in the middle of the NE side. A third tower is octagonal and its SE corner is incorporated in a cottage of ?early C17 date. Traces of buildings abutting on the curtain wall perhaps remain underground. The top storey of tower B is a later addtition of flint and brick, the main castle buildings being of flint with ashlar quoins. A brick fireplace of C16 inserted in the curtain wall shows that part continued in use up to that period, but in Elizabeth's reign the present house was built. Adjacent to the S end of the house is the Elizabethan well-house with donkey-wheel still complete. To the E of tower C are two walls of a flint building with brick buttresses, having three-light traceried windows between the buttresses. (Oxfordshire HER)
Walter de Grey, Archbishop of York, is recorded as having bought Rotherfield from Eve de Grey about 1239 and settled it upon his brother Robert, ancestor of the Lords Grey of Rotherfield.
"Of his Bachelors' Hall is "traditionally described as the chapel."
The older brick portions of the present house were probably built by Sir Francis Knollys who acquired the estate from Henry VIII in 1538
"The house stands in the western half of the Court, its three-gabled front facing east, of flint, brick, and clunch probably quarried from the mediaeval buildings." This east front was apparently added on to the Tudor work of Sir Francis Knollys probably by William Knollys c. 1600, and it may have been much larger at one time as some of it is supposed to have been destroyed in the Civil War. "The north end was certainly reconstructed of brick in the eighteenth century, perhaps implying an amputation at that point".(PastScape ref. Hussey 1944)
This site is a scheduled monument protected by law
This is a Grade 1 listed building protected by law
Historic England Scheduled Monument Number
Historic England Listed Building number(s)
Images Of England
Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s)
County Historic Environment Record
| OS Map Grid Reference | SU724834 |
| Latitude | 51.5450286865234 |
| Longitude | -0.956219971179962 |
| Eastings | 472470 |
| Northings | 183410 |
