Buscot Park. Buscot Park is a country house at Buscot near the town of Faringdon in Oxfordshire within the historic boundaries of Berkshire. It was built in an austere neoclassical style between 1780 and 1783 for Edward Loveden Loveden. It remained in the family until sold in 1859 to Robert Tertius Campbell, an Australian. Campbell's daughter Florence would later be famous as Mrs Charles Bravo, the central character in a Victorian murder case that remains unsolved to this day. On Campbell's death, in 1887, the house and its estate were sold to Alexander Henderson a financier, later to be ennobled as Baron Faringdon. Following the death of the 1st Baron in 1934, the house was considerably altered and restored to its 18th-century form, by the architect Geddes Hyslop, for his grandson and successor, Gavin Henderson, 2nd Baron Faringdon, during this era, the art collection founded by the 1st Baron was considerably enlarged, although many of the 1st Baron's 19th-century works of art were sold immediately following his death. The house and estate was bequeathed to the National Trust in 1956. The contents are owned by the Faringdon Collection Trust. The house is occupied and managed by the present Lord Faringdon. The mansion and its extensive formal and informal gardens and grounds are open to the public each summer. The construction of Buscot Park was begun in 1780, for Edward Loveden Loveden, whose family had owned land adjacent to the site since 1557. The land upon which he chose to build the house itself was owned by the neighbouring Throckmorton estate. Loveden Loveden did not acquire ownership of the land upon which his house was built until 1788. The architect is unknown, and it is likely that Loveden himself had a hand in the design. Loveden is known to have employed James Darley at this time; a little-known architect, described by a contemporary as able and experienced. The names of other far more eminent architects have been mentioned in connection with Buscot, including that of Robert Adam, but there is no documented evidence that any of these architects worked on the house; it therefore seems likely their involvement is apocryphal. It is known that James Paine supplied fireplaces and advised on the building costs, but the general design of the mansion is unsophisticated and not in character with Paine's work, making it unlikely that his involvement was major. The house is constructed of local stone and materials with Portland stone adornments. The roof is of Westmorland slate. Some of the building materials were bought second-hand, following demolitions and alterations to Kempsford House, Gloucestershire, and Charlton House. Whoever the architect was, the design fails to follow the strict dictates of either the Palladian style, which was passing from fashion, or those of the neoclassical style, which had been becoming popular in England from the late 1760s. Christopher Hussey, writing in 1940, opined that The architect owed much to Robert Adam and the pattern books of the admirable tradesmen of the day. Unusually for a house of this period, the house has neither portico nor pilasters to break the austerity of the facade. Contemporary drawings show that the principal and central entrance originally had a segmented pediment, a motif of the Baroque, long out of fashion by the 1780s. This entrance, like the principal reception rooms, was placed in the first floor, on a piano nobile in Palladian style, leaving the ground floor free for the domestic and estate offices and service rooms. However, in neoclassical style, above the principal floor is a second floor, its windows having equal value to those below, indicating that here were principal bedrooms rather than secondary and servants' rooms, as would have been the case in a Palladian or Baroque design. The severity of the facade, which is of nine bays, is only relieved by a band between the two major floors and the slight projection of the central three bays which are crowned by a low pediment. Following the Palladian tradition, the ground floor is rusticated. The roofline has only a very low parapet and no balustrade, thus leaving the hipped roof and chimneys completely visible. The high slate roof is pierced by two gable windows, more reminiscent of a farmhouse than a sophisticated mansion. The north front more truly follows the neoclassical style, in its English form, of the later 18th century. Two large bows project to flank the central three bays. In 1859, the house and estate were sold by Loveden Loveden's great grandson, Sir Pryse Pryse. The new owner was an Australian gold trader, Robert Tertius Campbell. A keen agriculturist, Campbell extensively modernised the estate, seriously depleting his fortune in the process.