Ramsbury Manor

Ramsbury Manor is a country house at Ramsbury, Wiltshire, on the River Kennet between Hungerford and Marlborough, in the south of England. It is Grade I listed on the National Heritage List for England.Sir William Jones bought the estate in 1676. He wanted a country house to match his status, and turned to Dr Robert Hooke as one of the leading architects of the day, whom he already knew from work that Hooke had supervised on Jones' house in Bloomsbury. Hooke met Jones at least five times in 1681, and probably provided him with designs for Ramsbury Manor at that time. Construction of the house probably began in 1681, but the house was unfinished when Sir William died in May 1682. The main structure of the house was completed in 1683, but work on the interior continued until 1686. The house is an excellent example of Hooke’s country house style of architecture, dignified and built to the best standards of the time.Notable residents have included Sir Francis Burdett, a Radical Whig politician, and his daughter Angela Burdett-Coutts (1814–1906), at one time the richest woman in England.In 1950, the last of the GWR Manor Class steam locomotives to be built was named Ramsbury Manor.