Sulgrave Manor Oxfordshire hotels:

Sulgrave Manor is the ancestral home in England of George Washington's family. The property is situated in the beautiful rural village community of Sulgrave, near to Banbury and about 30 miles from both Stratford-upon-Avon and Oxford. It was bought by Lawrence Washington, a wealthy wool merchant and Mayor of Northampton, when Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries. Lawrence's descendants lived for over 120 years (1539 - 1659) in the home that he built. When the English Civil War between Charles I and Oliver Cromwell's Parliamentary Army broke out, many of Lawrence Washington's descendants supported the Royalist cause. After the defeat of Charles I, many Royalists emigrated to Virginia and in 1656, Colonel John Washington, the great-great grandson of Lawrence Washington and the great-grandfather of George Washington , crossed the Atlantic. More than 250 years after the first Washingtons landed in America, President Theodore Roosevelt decided that there should be a proper celebration of the centenary of the end of the war of 1812 - the last serious armed conflict between England and America. Prominent statesmen and civic leaders were recruited to form peace committees in the United States, in Great Britain and in Canada. The British committee decided to purchase George Washington's ancestral home on behalf of the British and American people and, after World War I, King George V was a leading contributor to the Sulgrave Manor Restoration Fund.