An early mention of the manor of Ascott occurs in 1317, when the ownership lay with Thomas Sackville. A namesake descendant and his wife then settled the estate upon their daughter Margery, the wife of Thomas Rokes, and on the spandrel of the church south door a material representation is carved, on the eroded stonework that allegedly portrays the arms of Sackville ‘impaling’, as per the heraldic term, those of Rokes. Eventually Ascott passed to the Dormer family, and reputedly upon the site of Wing priory, formerly a cell of the Benedictine order, they built their family seat, Ascott House where, shortly after the accession of her sister Mary to the throne, the Princess Elizabeth is supposed to have stayed in 1544, whilst on her way as a prisoner from Woodstock to Hampton Court. Having in 1628 acquired the title Viscount Ascott and Earl of Carnarvon, on the plan of Inigo Jones a descendant of the family then added a ‘noble apartment’ to Ascott House, but seemingly the work was never completed, which was perhaps just as well since, by order of the Parliamentary Committee of Safety, Cromwell’s troops searched and ransacked the building on November 29th 1642. Yet perhaps they had good reason, for later in the Civil War Charles I stayed at Ascott House on Wednesday 27th August, 1645. In fact the Royalist soldiers were encamped in the adjoining close, although in the morning one of their number was hanged from a village tree for having stolen the church communion plate. In more peaceful times the 2nd Earl kept great hospitality at Ascott House, with a bowling green in the grounds ‘constantly open for the amusement of the neighbouring gentry’, whilst as for the staff of the household, in the church of Wing in the south aisle may be seen an interesting wall brass that commemorates ‘honest old Thomas Cotes, that sometime was porter at Ascott Hall.’ Thomas ‘left his key, lodg, fyre, friends’, in 1648, ‘all to have a roome in heaven’, and around his figure are arrayed a tall hat, porter’s staff and house key. Due to the neglect of the contemporary owner, Sir William Stanhope, after 1720 Ascott House sadly fell into ruins, and in the early 19th century the foundations were cleared away and used for road repair, leaving only earthworks and a pond to be seen in a field of the old Park. However, the name survives in the title of a later Ascott House, for, as a member of the German Jewish banking family, in 1873 Baron Meyer de Rothschild, of Mentmore, acquired 90 acres of local land and a 17th century farmhouse. This his son Leopold then took over in the following year as a hunting lodge, and indeed the kennels and stables were duly transferred from Mentmore. Enlisting the professional help of an architect, George Devey, plus the landscape assistance of Sir Harry Veitch, Leopold duly enlarged and transformed the House, and indeed to such a degree that here would be entertained King George V and Queen Mary. In 1949, with 261 acres of land Ascott House was then given by Mr. Anthony de Rothschild to the National Trust, and it may now be toured at relevant times of the year. Apart from the grounds and the magnificent collections of art, porcelain and furniture, also of note is the cornice of the Common Room, which incorporates a series of proverbs to include such examples as ‘Old foxes need no tutors’, and ‘Every shoe fits not every foot.’ Of additional interest is the library, which contained several unusual and highly original ‘volumes’, not the least of which are the ‘Log Book of the Ark’, and ‘Archimedes on the Steam Engine.’