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Revision as of 00:04, 29 September 2006 by 195.82.106.244 (talk)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Nuneham Courtenay is a village in Oxfordshire, England. It lies about five miles south-east of Oxford.
In the 1760s the first Lord Harcourt demolished the old village in order to create a landscaped park, and built a new village along the main road (now the A4074).
Nuneham Park is a Palladian villa, built for the 1st Earl of Harcourt in 1756 currently used as a retreat centre by a Hindu-based cult called the Brahma Kumaris World SPiritual University. Its landscaped grounds were designed by Lancelot Brown.
All Saints Old Church was built by the first Lord Harcourt after he had demolished the original village church. It was built overlooking the River Thames as a domed Palladian temple. Its entrance is at the west end; an Ionic portico was created to complement the landscaping of the park, and fronts a blank wall.
The Harcourt Arboretum lies just outside the village. This is part of the plant collection of the Oxford Botanic Garden. It occupies part of what were the grounds of Nuneham Park. The arboretum includes ten acres of woodland, and a thirty-seven-acre wild-flower meadow.
The village is also the home of the Bodleian Library's Nuneham Courtenay Book Repository, which houses one and a half million items selected from the University of Oxford's collections.
Sources and external links
- Map sources for Nuneham Courtenay
- Nuneham Courtenay Oxfordshire — from A Vision of Britain through Time
- Nuneham Courtenay, All Saints Old Church — from the Churches Conservation Trust
- Harcourt Arboretum — information from the Oxford Botanic Garden site
- "View of Nuneham Courtenay from the Thames" (1787) — painting by Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) at Tate Online
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