Hardwick House

Hardwick House is a Tudor-style house on the banks of the River Thames on a slight rise at Whitchurch-on-Thames in the English county of Oxfordshire. It is reputed to have been the inspiration for E. H. Shepard's illustrations of Toad Hall in the book The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, although this is also claimed by Mapledurham House, Fowey Hall Hotel, Foxwarren Park and Fawley Court.

Hardwick House was bought by Richard Lybbe in 1526; that family ended in an heiress Isabella Lybbe who married Philip Powys in 1730 and their Powys descendants had their home there for a further 130 years. Caroline Powys, wife of Philip Lybbe Powys of Hardwick House maintained a diary from 1756 which recorded the daily social round of her class in gossipy detail. She wrote of visits to neighbouring country houses, the winter balls and assemblies in Henley and the seasons in London and Bath with their plays, concerts and balls. Their great-grandson Philip Lybbe Powys, who later assumed the additional surname of Lybbe, was a rower and MP. He recalled as a child rowing from Hardwick to Mapledurham on Sunday afternoons.

Wikipedia