Tone Dale House – a Fox house

In 1786, Thomas Fox the son of Edward Fox became a partner in the family’s long established textile manufacturing business in Wellington, Somerset. “It was the practice…for many well-to-do manufacturers and merchants to build fine houses in the country, becoming country gentlemen themselves, their ladies priding themselves on their idleness.” Thomas Fox and his wife Sarah, however, built their Palladian Villa house from 1801 beside their woollen mill.

Thomas Fox also started the private bank of Fox, Fowler and Company that was the last competitor to the Bank of England until its amalgamation to Lloyd’s Bank in 1927. An original £5 Note is on display at Tone Dale House.

The first person to ski in Grindelwald, Switzerland was Englishmen Gerald Fox (who lived at Tone Dale House) who put his skis on in his hotel bedroom in 1881 and walked out through the hotel Bar to the slopes wearing them.

The Grounds
Tone Dale House is set in 4 acres (1.6 ha) of gardens on the Devon & Somerset borders, just 2 miles (3.2 km) rom junction 26 of the M5 motorway . “Tone Dale House is a long, low, well-proportioned house, yellow plastered building built in the style of a Palladian Villa. The house faces south; with windows looking out across the gardens to a distant view of the Blackdown Hills, the mill stream flowing slowly by, until it disappears into the shrubbery, where it cascades over the weir.” The garden which is mostly laid to lawn, includes an old tennis house, a two-hundred-year-old Cork Oak tree; all bordered by a ten-foot sandstone wall and the mill stream.

Present day
Today the 16 bedroom Tone Dale House is owned by Ben Fox (former Director at Fox Brothers) and Victoria Fox (and run by the Big House Co) and can be hired for celebrations, anniversaries, weddings, parties, holidays, reunions or corporate events.

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