Building record 1510500000 - Oakengrove, Shire Lane, Hastoe

Historic building recording carried out by Cotswold Archaeology in September 2020 in advance of building extensions established that the building had been built in 1913 as a pair of estate cottages to designs by William Huckvale for Baron Lionel de Rothschild. The building was altered to a single house in the mid-20th century, with later internal alterations. Prior to the construction of the estate cottages, the site was occupied by the farmhouse and farm buildings of Oakengrove Farm, which were largely demolished prior to the construction of the cottages. See report for detail (B1).
Report highlights conflicting evidence from 1924 25-inch OS map for the construction date of the cottages, however the survey dates of the 1924 map indicate that whilst the Hertfordshire part of the map had been revised in 1923, the Buckinghamshire part of the map had not been revised since 1897-8, so the details of Oakengrove Farm were considerably out of date and showed the farm buildings prior to the 1913 redevelopment (B2).
Oakengrove dates back to c.1913 and was formally part of the Rothschild Estate. This connection is reflected in the ‘Old English’ architectural Style of the building which was almost universally adopted by the Rothchilds for their estate dwellings. The building is characterised by its timber framing, broken form, deep roof plan, multiple bays, steep pitched gables, large chimney stacks and hipped outshuts. The house still very much reflects its original plan form and has survived fairly in tact. To this end, the building carries significance through its aesthetical value, age and historical connection and its rarity as a surviving intact example (B3).