Youlbury House
summary: A Grade II listed 1969–1971 modernist house on Boars Hill near Oxford, built on the site of archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans's demolished mansion and designed by landscape architect Hal Moggridge — one of only three houses he ever designed.
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- Established
- 1969–1971 (present house); site previously held an 1893 mansion
- Location
- Boars Hill, Wootton, Oxfordshire
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Listed status
- Grade II, listed July 2009
- Architect
- Hal Moggridge — one of only three residential buildings he designed
- Structural engineer
- Ove Arup and Partners
- Size
- Six bedrooms on 9.6 acres (main house); wider former estate of about 27 acres
- Earlier mansion
- Built 1893 by Sir Arthur Evans and demolished after his death; described as having 26 bedrooms by the Guardian and twenty-two bedrooms by the New York Review of Books — a discrepancy this profile flags rather than resolves
- Architectural record
- Interior photographed in 1972 by John Donat for the RIBA Collections
- Nearby namesake
- The Youlbury Scout activity centre on Boars Hill is a separate facility near the house, not part of it
Overview
Youlbury House is a Grade II listed modernist house on Boars Hill, three miles southwest of Oxford, built in 1969–1971 on the site of a much larger Victorian mansion that had belonged to the archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans, excavator of Knossos (The Guardian). It is one of only three houses ever designed by the landscape architect Hal Moggridge, and its interior was photographed for the RIBA’s architectural collection in 1972 (RIBA pix).
Arthur Evans’s Youlbury
Evans began building his mansion in 1893, the year his wife Margaret died, on Boar’s Hill south of Oxford, against his father’s advice — he named it Youlbury after the locality (The New York Review of Books). Richard Jenkyns, writing in the Review, describes “an enormous rambling mansion” where a dozen servants attended to Evans’s comforts: there were marble and columns in the hall, a mosaic of the Minotaur, and a marble Roman bath with steps leading down into it (The New York Review of Books). The same account gives the house as twenty-two bedrooms and five bathrooms — against the Guardian’s description of a 26-bedroom house, a discrepancy this profile flags rather than resolves (The New York Review of Books). Evans’s Christmas parties at Youlbury were famous, and he was known to enjoy the company of the young (The New York Review of Books).
After Evans’s death in 1941 the mansion fell into disrepair and was eventually demolished (The Guardian), but the lake Evans made in the garden survives, set in woods thick with rhododendrons (The New York Review of Books).
A rare Moggridge house
William Goodhart — a human rights lawyer and Liberal Democrat politician later made a life peer as Baron Goodhart — and his wife Celia acquired the site in 1966 (Country Life). Their new house was designed by Hal Moggridge, Celia’s brother-in-law. The RIBA’s photo archive records the design under the practice name Colvin & Moggridge — the firm Moggridge co-founded with the landscape architect Brenda Colvin — and notes that it was built for William and Celia Goodhart and listed Grade II in 2009 (RIBA pix). It remains one of only three residential buildings Moggridge — later known chiefly as a landscape architect — ever designed (The Guardian).
Moggridge has said he drew on Frank Lloyd Wright and Alvar Aalto, and that the house was originally designed with a fully glazed front before concerns about overexposure led to windows “punched into the wooden walls” instead (The Guardian). Country Life adds that the structural engineering was by Ove Arup and Partners, and describes the design as recalling Wright’s Fallingwater, with the building stepping down the hillside from a single storey at one end to three storeys at the other above a lake (Country Life). WowHaus’s account of the Savills listing fills in the interior: the entrance leads into a hallway that “diagonally transects” the length of the building, with the kitchen and dining room at the northern end and a dual-aspect master bedroom at the southern end; at the centre, a curving cement staircase connects the lower-level playroom to the drawing room above, whose double-height ceiling is lined in Parana pine (WowHaus).
The house received Grade II listed status in July 2009, which Country Life notes is unusual for a building of its era (Country Life; Historic England).
The Goodharts and the sale
The Goodharts’ daughter, Laura Watts, told the Guardian the house felt “a bit like a treehouse,” recalling deer and frogs in the surrounding woodland and games played in the built-in storage cupboards (The Guardian). The same article describes the house as a hub for political and academic gatherings, given William Goodhart’s career, while noting the family “usually avoided talking politics” with a Conservative-MP relative who lived nearby (The Guardian).
By 2015, the estate — by then comprising the main house on 9.6 acres plus separate cottages and land totalling around 27 acres — was put on the market through Savills, split into several lots with a combined guide price of about £4.5 million (Country Life). WowHaus reported the main house alone at a guide price of £1,950,000, and described the separate lots: an agent’s cottage with walled gardens that had planning permission for a six-bedroom replacement property, plus a gardener’s cottage and a bailiff’s cottage (WowHaus). William Goodhart died on 10 January 2017, as announced to the House of Lords (Hansard).
A different Youlbury
The Youlbury Scout activity centre — a facility set in 42 acres of woodland at Boars Hill, Oxford (UK School Trips) — is a separate entity near the house, not part of it. This profile covers only the house.
What this profile does not claim
This profile does not state who owns the property today; no source found describes a sale following the 2015–2016 marketing period. It does not resolve the conflicting accounts of the demolished mansion’s size — the Guardian’s 26 bedrooms against the New York Review of Books’ twenty-two bedrooms and five bathrooms — and repeats only the same benign family recollections that Celia Goodhart and Laura Watts gave to the Guardian in 2016, making no other claim about their current lives. The Country Life page returned an access error during this research pass, so its claims here rest on the earlier verified read, and no new material was drawn from it. Nothing in this profile connects the house to the Youlbury Scout activity centre beyond their proximity on Boars Hill.
Timeline
- 1893
- Archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans builds a large Victorian mansion and elaborate pleasure gardens on the site, beginning construction in the year of his wife Margaret's death.
- 1941
- Evans dies; the mansion falls into disrepair over the following years and is eventually demolished.
- 1966
- William Goodhart (later Baron Goodhart) and his wife Celia acquire the site after their marriage.
- 1969
- Construction begins on a new modernist house designed by Hal Moggridge, Celia Goodhart's brother-in-law, with engineering by Ove Arup and Partners; completed 1971.
- 1972
- Photographer John Donat photographs the house's interior for the RIBA Collections, catalogued as Modern Movement timber construction.
- 2009
- The house receives Grade II listed status, in July — unusual for a building of its era.
- 2015
- The estate is put on the market, split into the main house and three further plots, through agents Savills.
- 2016
- The Guardian profiles the house and the Goodhart family's decades living there, while it remains on the market.
- 2017
- William Goodhart dies on 10 January, as announced to the House of Lords.
What we could not verify
These claims came up in research and could not be confirmed. They are recorded here rather than published as fact or quietly dropped. If you hold a source that settles one, please tell us.
- No source found describes whether the property has since sold, or to whom, since it was marketed in 2015–2016; this profile makes no claim about its current ownership.
- Sources disagree on the demolished mansion's size: the Guardian describes 26 bedrooms, while the New York Review of Books describes twenty-two bedrooms and five bathrooms. Both figures are reported here without choosing between them.
- William Goodhart, Baron Goodhart, died in 2017; his wife Celia Goodhart and daughter Laura Watts, quoted in the Guardian piece, are not otherwise public figures, and this profile repeats only the same benign, non-controversial recollections they gave to that reporter.
Sources
9 sources (6 tier 1, 2 tier 2, 1 tier 3), each opened and read against the claim it supports. Every source is independent of the subject; no first-party material is cited. See the source policy.
Each source below was fetched and read against the claim it supports. The Guardian article could not be retrieved through this site's usual research tool (theguardian.com is blocked to it) and was instead read in full through a browser session before being cited — consistent with this site's rule against citing sources that were not actually read. The Country Life article returned an access error during this enrichment pass, so no new claims were drawn from it here; its existing citations rest on the earlier verified read. The New York Review of Books, RIBA pix, Hansard and the school-trips listing were each fetched and read in full for this update. Where the Guardian and the New York Review of Books disagree on the old mansion's size, both figures are given and the conflict is flagged rather than resolved.
- Supports: Grade II listed status and its date, and the official architectural description. Open original source
- Supports: The Evans mansion's history and demolition, the Goodhart family's acquisition and decades living there, Moggridge's design influences and the glass-façade change, and the 2009 listing. Open original source
- Supports: Independent corroboration of the site's history and heritage status. Open original source
- Supports: The Evans mansion's construction in the year of his wife's death, its scale (twenty-two bedrooms and five bathrooms), the marble Roman bath and Minotaur mosaic, the household staff, the famous Christmas parties, and the survival of Evans's lake after demolition. Open original source
- Supports: John Donat's 1972 interior photographs and the archive notes attributing the house to Colvin & Moggridge for William and Celia Goodhart, with Grade II listing in 2009. Open original source
- Supports: The announcement of William Goodhart's death on 10 January 2017. Open original source
- A secret house near Oxford Tier 2Supports: The 1966 acquisition date, the estate's division into separate lots for sale, the structural engineering by Ove Arup and Partners, and the guide prices. Open original source
- Supports: Architectural description (glass and cedar, single-to-three-storey plan, hallway, Parana pine drawing room, curving staircase), the 9.6-acre setting with Evans's garden remnants, the £1.95m main-house guide price, and the separate lots with planning permission. Open original source
- Supports: The Youlbury Scout activity centre's address and setting on Boars Hill, used only to distinguish it from the house. Open original source
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