The romantic vistas of the Mitford sisters childhood home, Asthall Manor

Everything about Asthall Manor is romantic – the gables, the roses, the lake, the ballroom, and the swans on the willow-bordered River Windrush. Then there is the connection with the Mitford sisters, who lived here as children. The siblings moved into the Cotswold manor house in 1919 when their father, the 2nd Baron Redesdale, bought the house to reunite it with the estate, which he had inherited from his own father in 1916. The house, which dates from 1620, was immortalised as Alconleigh in Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love. Fans of the 1945 novel will be thrilled to learn that the ‘Hons’ cupboard’ remains intact at the top of the backstairs, as hot as ever, its slatted shelving still piled with laundry.

Asthall’s current owner, Rosie Pearson, is not immune to the Mitford magic. She enjoyed several impromptu visits from Debo, the late Duchess of Devonshire, who stopped short in front of the wooden plate rack in the scullery and said ‘Mabel’, recalling a maid she had not thought of since childhood, and was delighted that the Mitfords’ particular shade of blue paint had survived in the upstairs corridor. The lack of tampering also appealed to Rosie, who fell in love with the location before she saw the house. ‘I had come back from Jamaica in 1997, where I lived for 10 years and ran a school while raising my two daughters, and I was renting near Oxford. On my way for lunch with a friend, I came through this beautiful valley and thought I would love to live here one day.’

Not long afterwards, the house came up at auction. ‘It was beyond my budget because it had a lot of land,’ says Rosie. ‘But then, later that same year, it was put up for sale again, with only 18 acres, and although it was rather dilapidated, I bought it. I think I was a bit naive.’ Naive possibly, but also courageous. Having separated from her daughters’ Jamaican father, Rosie took on the house and gardens as a single mother. Friends rallied round to help. ‘Someone suggested I should contact Isabel and Julian Bannerman. They compiled a beautiful book of their ideas for the garden, and then held my hand throughout the process of restoring and decorating the house. I think I would have lost my nerve without them.’

MAY WE SUGGEST: Inside the home of the last Mitford

In truth, she seems to have plenty of nerve. Take her gateposts, for example. Most people would have been happy to top them with balls, or pineapples, but Rosie wanted something more interesting. She commissioned her old schoolfriend (now partner), the sculptor Anthony Turner, to create two large, non-identical, stone topknots, which squat curvaceously on top of their square pillars like extra-terrestrial turban squashes. ‘They caused quite a stir in the village when they first went up,’ she says.

They also triggered an idea for an event that has given the house a name beyond its literary associations, and is now a significant date in the art-world calendar. ‘Anthony brought a sculptor friend with him, Dominic Welch, to help with the gateposts. They both pointed out what a wonderful setting for contemporary sculpture the garden would be.’ The idea took root and the first biennial On Form exhibition took place in the summer of 2002, four years after Rosie first moved in. Each show has been a celebration of contemporary stone sculpture. Since 2006, Rosie has been assisted by the curator and art consultant Anna Greenacre. About 10,000 visitors passed through the gates in 2018 to see 384 works by 40 artists.

The Bannermans and Rosie have created a garden that invites leisurely wandering. It is more formal close to the house, with gravel paths, great wedges of clipped yew and a crisp parterre, but it loosens as it extends – its borders and lawns seeming to melt into the surrounding fields, through the orchard or down across the water meadows. Viewing the sculptures is an exploration, during which you will find a tree house, a thatched summerhouse, a pool-house bookshop and a gypsy caravan. Some works are set on the lawns, where sunlight dapples across surfaces of chiselled granite, honed marble and limestone; some rise from the longer grass of the meadows, while others are reflected in the still waters of the natural swimming pool or the lake. ‘Placing each work is an art in itself,’ says Rosie. ‘I like surprises, so we try to create interesting juxtapositions.’ Signs indicate to visitors, ‘DO touch.’