The late Dowager Duchess of Devonshire originally penned this piece for a 2009 issue of Country Life — and her words were recently rediscovered. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

After my father sold Batsford Park, Moreton-in-Marsh, and its surrounding estate in 1919, he looked for a more modest house near the land at Swinbrook that he still owned.

Asthall Manor was on the market and was the ideal solution. It is the archetypal ancient Cotswold manor house, hard by the church, a garden descending to the River Windrush with the prettiest village imaginable and farms to match.

The house needed much restoration, and, with great foresight or perhaps just by luck, my father converted the barn a few yards away into one big ground-floor reception room with four bedrooms

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