The House
Buscot Park is the family home of Lord Faringdon, who looks after the property on behalf of the National Trust, as well as the family collection of pictures, furniture, ceramics and objets d'art, known as the Faringdon Collection, which is displayed in the house.
Buscot Park was built between 1780 and 1783 for a local landowner, Edward Loveden Townsend. In 1859 his great-grandson sold the estate to an Australian tycoon, Robert Tertius Campbell. He died in 1887 after spending a fortune turning Buscot into a model agricultural estate. In 1889 the estate was purchased by Lord Faringdon's great-grandfather, Alexander Henderson, a financier of exceptional skill and ability, who in 1916 was created the 1st Lord Faringdon. He greatly enlarged the house, commissioned Harold Peto to design the famous Italianate water garden, and laid the foundations of the Faringdon Collection. Among his many purchases were Rembrandt's portrait of Pieter Six, Rossetti's chalk drawing of Pandora, and Burne-Jones's famous series, The Legend of the Briar Rose.
His grandson and heir, Gavin Henderson, added considerably to the collection, acquiring important furniture designed by Robert Adam and Thomas Hope, and was instrumental in returning the house to its late eighteenth century appearance.
The present Lord Faringdon, Gavin's nephew, together with his fellow Trustees, continues to add to the collection, to improve its display, and to enliven the gardens and grounds, in the hope that visitors might gain more enjoyment from Buscot whilst ensuring that it still feels very much a family home.
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