Headington Hill Hall, English country house in Oxford, England
Headington Hill Hall is an Italianate mansion on the eastern edge of town with a tall colonnade front and fifty-one rooms inside. The facade shows bright rows of windows beneath a low roof while the interiors preserve wide staircases and decorated ceilings.
The brewer Morrell family built the first structure around eighteen twenty-four and James Morrell Junior expanded it into a large mansion between eighteen fifty-six and eighteen fifty-eight. The university took over the estate in the late twentieth century for its academic use.
The name Headington Hill refers to the gentle slope on the eastern edge of town where the estate has stood since the early nineteenth century. Today students and wedding parties use the halls while the facade with its columns remains visible above the green slope.
Oxford Brookes University uses the listed building today for lectures and civil weddings. Visitor access depends on scheduled events so it helps to inquire ahead.
A glass window on the main staircase shows Samson with the features of Robert Maxwell who owned the estate in the second half of the twentieth century. Maxwell had himself immortalized as the biblical figure in the colored glass.
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