Stanway is an outstandingly beautiful example of a Jacobean manor house, owned by Tewkesbury Abbey for 800 years then for 500 years by the Tracy family and their descendants, the Earls of Wemyss who still live there. The house, its fascinating furniture, the jewel-like Gatehouse, the church and 14th-century Tithe Barn, the 18th-century water-garden, the specimen trees and avenues, the surrounding villages, farms, parkland and woodland all subtly combine to create an enclave of very English and almost magical harmony. Thanks to its location, at the foot of the Cotswold escarpment, Stanway has been protected from many changes of the 20th century. Recently it has seen the gradual restoration of the 18th century watergarden, probably designed by the greatest of British landscape gardeners, Charles Bridgeman. The formal Canal, on a terrace above the house, the striking Pyramid and several ponds have been reinstated, and a single-jet fountain, at 300 feet the highest fountain in Britain and the highest gravity fountain in the world, has been added.
