A Brief History of The Woodstock Arms

The Woodstock Arms is located in the historic town of Woodstock, just a few yards from Blenheim Palace, the home of the Duke of Marlborough and, on 30th November 1874, the birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill.

Blenheim Palace was built for John Churchill, the first Duke of Marlborough and designed by Sir John Vanbrugh. The park & lake which surround the Place were landscaped by Lancelot “Capability” Brown (*).

The Woodstock Arms occupies what were for many years three sites owned (until about 1940) by the corporation. There is a record of a tenement on the western part being bought in 1553 by John Crossley.  His tenant, who acquired the freehold sometime before 1638, was Thomas Heathen, serjeant-at-mace. When his grandson sold the property to the corporation in 1699, the house was rebuilt to create substantially what exists today. Until 1838 the Heathens and subsequent serjeants were alehouse keepers, and the name Woodstock Arms appears to have been given to the house in about 1738.

The eastern part of the site of today’s building was occupied by a tenement owned in 1528 by the wardens of St Mary’s chantry. The corporation appears to have acquired the property in the later 16th century, and the town’s wool barn occupied the rear part of the plot. A tailor, William Perring, is recorded as holding both house and barn in the 17th century and he and his successors operated an alehouse that by 1742 was known as the Three Tuns.

In 1735 the corporation let the property to a builder, James Simmons, on condition that he rebuilt it in stone ‘as high as the serjeant’s house’.  That was done over a two-year period, and the former tailor’s shop presumably became the central part of today’s building. The Three Tuns became successively the Duke of Wellington and – in 1829 – the Royal Oak. The buildings were amalgamated, and the present Woodstock Arms created, after the tenant of the then Woodstock Arms acquired a lease of the eastern parts in 1879. 19th century refenestration created today’s exterior of the whole, while the interior has seen constant development to suit changing tastes.

(* )Lancelot Brown acquired the peculiar nickname "Capability" from his habit of telling clients that their gardens had "great capabilities" in his talented hands.