Englefield House

Englefield House

Englefield Estate
Englefield Road
Theale
Reading
Berkshire
RG7 5DU

Tel: 0118 930 2504
Fax: 0118 932 3748
E-Mail: office@englefield.co.uk

Web: Englefield House

About Englefield House

Please Note: That the house is NOT open to the public only the gardens.
Englefield House is a beautiful tudor house set in over 14,000 acres. There is an inscription on a stone staircase in the garden which reads, "If you help towards Englefield garden either in flowers or invention you shall be welcome thither". This was written in a letter to a friend by Sir Edward Norris in 1601 and shows that a garden at Englefield was being planned and cared for four hundred years ago. The other major recorded work was in 1860 when the stone balustrades and staircases were built by Italian craftsmen in the time of Richard Benyon, farmer, philanthropist and Member of Parliament for Reading. A large conservatory stood on the wide upper terrace from 1860 until it was removed in 1930. In 1936 the woodland garden on the hill above was created by thinning the existing forest trees. Sir Henry and Lady Benyon commissioned Wallace & Barr of Tunbridge Wells to design and plant this area and the stream was constructed at the same time. Much of the original planting is still in place and this includes varieties of rhododendron, azalea, camellia, magnolia, hamamelis, parrotia, cornus, davidia and acer. The lower terrace was redesigned in 1974 from a formal rose garden surrounded by wide grave