The Lees, Dillons and Trees
The Ditchley estate was bought by Sir Henry Lee in 1580 when he was made the Ranger of the Wychwood Forest, the royal hunting forest based round the hunting-lodge at Woodstock. Elizabeth I visited him at Ditchley in 1592, after he had married one of her Ladies-in-Waiting without her permission. Annoyed at this, so the story goes, the Queen stayed rather longer than she might otherwise have done, putting her host to considerable extra expense. The visit is commemorated in a painting by Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger, “The Ditchley Elizabeth”, which shows Elizabeth with her foot on Oxfordshire and her toe on Ditchley. This hung in the Mansion until 1932 and is now in the National Portrait Gallery in London. A copy can be seen at Ditchley Park.
Four generations later Sir Henry’s heir, Edward Henry Lee, was created the 1st Earl of Litchfield in 1676 when he married Charlotte Fitzroy, the illegitimate daughter of Charles II and Barbara Villiers, the Duchess of Cleveland, both of whose portraits hang in the White Drawing Room. Their son, the 2nd Earl, built the present Ditchley Park in 1722, to a design by James Gibbs, architect of St Martins in the Fields and the Radcliffe Camera. The interior was richly decorated by William Kent and Henry Flitcroft.
In the grounds the fish pond was extended to form the lake in 1746. After 1760 the Park was “naturalised”, with smooth lawns sweeping down to the lake, and the Great Temple or Rotunda was built in about 1780 by Stiff Leadbetter.
The 4th Earl died in 1776 without heir, so the estate passed to his niece, Lady Charlotte Lee, who had married the 11th Viscount Dillon, an Irish Peer.
In 1807 the 12th Viscount employed Louden to build the Ha Ha, further extend the lake and plant tree avenues, many of which survive today. At that stage the family funds began to run short, so no alterations were made to the Mansion in the subsequent century, a period which saw much modernisation (and ruination of the character) of many great country houses.