page_title: Horton Court
section_title: Paston
hierarchical_section_title: Horton Court / Descent of the manor / Paston
context_page_description: Horton Court is a stone-built 16th century manor house in Horton, near Chipping Sodbury, South Gloucestershire, England. The building retains a 12th-century Norman hall, and displays some of the earliest Renaissance decorative motifs used in England. It has been a National Trust property since 1949.
  The house was built in about 1521 by Rev. William Knight, Prothonotary to the Holy See, and later Bishop of Bath and Wells. The house was empty from 2008 to 2011 but the National Trust opened the ground floor on Friday and Sunday afternoons during July and August 2011 and are actively considering how to make it more readily accessible to the public. It is a grade I listed building.
  Within the grounds is a Grade I listed ambulatory, built for William Knight around 1527-29.
context_section_description: Following the Dissolution of the Monasteries Horton became crown property in 1550, and King Edward VI (1547–1553) granted it first to his uncle Protector Somerset and then in 1550 after his fall to Sir Edward Paston, the younger son of Sir John Paston the Younger (d.1504), by Margery Brews, daughter of Sir Thomas Brews, who was knighted at the Battle of Stoke in 1487. Sir John's father John Paston (1421–1466), MP for Norfolk in 1460 and 1461, wrote the famous Paston Letters. Horton seems to be an ancestor of Sir Edward Paston (1550–1630), the second son of Sir Edward Paston, the grantee's youngest nephew Sir Thomas Paston, a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber, by Agnes Leigh, daughter of Sir John Leigh of Addington, Surrey and Stockwell. Sir Thomas Paston's eldest brother Erasmus Paston (1502–1540) was the ancestor of Sir William Paston, 1st Baronet (c. 1610–1663), created a baronet in 1642, whose son was Robert Paston, 1st Earl of Yarmouth (1631–1683). Sir Edward (d.1630), whose baroque mural monument can be seen in Blofield Church, Norfolk, 4 miles east of Norwich, a godson of King Edward VI, built Appleton Hall, West Newton, Norfolk, where the family lived for several generations until in 1767 a fire destroyed the house. They then moved to Horton Court in Gloucestershire. Appleton Hall was later rebuilt and became part of the royal Sandringham Estate, where it was used as a guest house for royal visitors. It became dilapidated during World War II and was demolished in 1984.
caption: William Paston Esq. Of Horton com. Gloucester. Died 1769. Painted by Thomas Hudson (1701-1779). At Coughton Court, Warwickshire, property of the National Trust, NTPL ref no: 58001
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