Youlbury House
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
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). Evans built his 26-bedroom house and elaborate pleasure gardens on the site in 1893; after his death in 1941 the mansion fell into disrepair and was eventually demolished (The Guardian).
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, and 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).
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).
Family memories
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).
Sale
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).
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 repeats only the same benign family recollections that Celia Goodhart and Laura Watts gave to the Guardian in 2016, and makes no other claim about their current lives.
Timeline
- 1893
- Archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans builds a 26-bedroom Victorian mansion and elaborate pleasure gardens on the site.
- 1941
- Evans dies; the mansion falls into disrepair over the following years.
- 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.
- 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.
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.
- 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
5 sources (3 tier 1, 2 tier 2), 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.
- Youlbury House, Wootton (list entry 1393396) Supports: Grade II listed status and its date, and the official architectural description.
- Homes: a radical Oxfordshire house 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.
- Youlbury House, Boars Hill, Wootton (MOX27225) Supports: Independent corroboration of the site's history and heritage status.
- A secret house near Oxford Supports: 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.
- On the market: 1970s Hal Moggridge-designed Youlbury House in Oxford, Oxfordshire Supports: Supporting architectural description and confirmation of the design details.
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