thumb|East front of Ditton Park House, 2004
Ditton Park, Ditton Manor House or Ditton Park House was the manor house and private feudal demesne of the lord of the Manor of Ditton, and refers today to the rebuilt building and smaller grounds towards the edge of the town of Slough in England. A key feature is its centuries-old moat which extends to most of the adjoining lawns and garden. Park areas extend to the north and west of the moat.
Ditton Park House and its courtyard walls, stables and observatory are Grade II listed on the National Heritage List for England (i.e. in the initial category).
History and architecture
thumb|Queen Mary (I) of England, Portrait by [[Antonis Mor, 1554]]
thumb|The Duchess of Buccleuch by [[Thomas Gainsborough, c. 1767, had this house, where she regularly lived, rapidly rebuilt in a new style following a fire in 1812.]]
Ditton Park belonged to the crown in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I and is in the ancient parish of Stoke Poges. It then belonged to Sir Ralph Winwood and passed to Ralph Montagu, 1st Duke of Montagu, through marriage. The direct precursor to the present house was probably built around the early 1600s and was taken down as damaged by fire in 1812. The small building near the south-east corner of the park, formerly a chantry, became a chapel by 1925 served by the vicar of Datchet, since a few years later disused.
In 1917 the remainder of the property, its farming tenants having long taken control through copyhold of their own lands, was taken over for the Admiralty Compass Observatory, which used the house and its immediate grounds. It was here in 1935 that the idea for the development of the British radar defence system was conceived, code-named Chain Home.
The property was sold to Computer Associates in 1997 which became CA Technologies and is now running Wedding Events.
Location
The manor was a detached part of Stoke Poges parish, which was in the southern extreme of the English county of Buckinghamshire, before boundary reorganisations: in 1934 it was transferred to the parish of Datchet, in 1974 Datchet became part of the borough of Windsor and Maidenhead in Berkshire, and in 1998 the borough gained unitary authority status in that ceremonial county.
References
Further reading
- Murdoch, Tessa (ed.), Noble Households: Eighteenth-Century Inventories of Great English Houses. A Tribute to John Cornforth. Cambridge: John Adamson, 2006, pp. 79–84