The Lovelace family, connections of the poet and cavalier, then came into its ownership, and were succeeded by the sister of a bishop, who purchased it with the proceeds of a prize gained in a lottery. Still later came the brother of that Kempenfeldt who perished in the Royal George, and who himself had helped to plant a laurel alley at the place. Finally, early in the present century, Ladye Place came into the hands of the present owner, who built the house now seen, and to whose interesting pamphlet concerning it, as also to his kindly help in other ways, this account is largely indebted.

Everything at Ladye Place is of interest; the very charming house itself, the subterranean chamber, the old fish-ponds, and the stately cedars on the lawns. But we must turn our back on all except the dovecote, standing in its field beside a splendid tithe-barn and another building scarcely less in size.

It is a circular stone structure, eighty-eight feet in circumference, and twenty-three feet high to the eaves. The walls, three feet eight inches thick, are buttressed in four places. The four buttresses are on the north, south, east, and west respectively, and are carried up the full height of the walls.The door, five feet in height by two feet six inches broad, has jambs and lintel of a later period than the walls; indeed upon the lintel is the date 1642, with C. R. - standing, almost certainly, for Carolus Rex. Immediately above the doorway is a blocked-up pointed arch. The roof is cone-shaped, with a small square cupola upon the top.

Inside we find six hundred L-shaped nests of chalk, arranged in fifteen tiers; the eighth row is the only one with an alighting-ledge, though there are other ledges quite irregularly placed. A potence is still in position.

The date usually assigned to this most interesting building is 1307, though the grounds for such precision are not clear. But there is little doubt that it is hardly, if at all inferior in antiquity to the Herefordshire example at Garway, or to the lost treasure at Bosbury. A vaulted roof, as seen at Garway and elsewhere, may quite well have existed formerly and been replaced by that now seen. The dovecote-lover may congratulate himself, not only on the Hurley dovecote, but upon the knowledge that it is in careful hands.

As we look at this lovely dovecote today, we see that it has indeed been in the care of a knowledgeable and careful hand,as Cooke informed us nearly 90 years ago. If anything, the dovecote is even more beautifully situated now than it was then. It sits on the southern side of the house, now named Tithecote Manor, and is listed as a Grade I building. It is on private property and can't be seen from the public right-of-way, but a recent picture has been most graciously provided to us all by the curent managers of the property. January 16, 2008

The dovecote is approximately 20'x40', and 20' again to the bottom of the eaves, with the rest of the gable extending another 20', making for a total of nearly 40' tall. There is an inside wall dividing the cote into two halves, providing even more nesting spaces.  Each chamber has a single entry door on the "front" side and there is a single square glazed window for one chamber and another single, large but narrow glazed window in the gable end for the other chamber. Neither window provides access, but does provide the only direct source of light for each chamber.  The louvered section shown on both sides is how the birds gained initial entrance into the cote.  These provide access to an upper chamber, which is the ceiling of the cote proper, and therefore provides no light for the cote chambers below.  From this chamber the birds dropped through a chute into the cote, making it virtually impossible for any bird or animal of prey to gain access to the interior of the cote.

The walls are covered with nearly 1,000 nest boxes, and the only break is the entry door.  They extend to, but not into, the gables.  They are arranged in the standard checkerboard style, alternating their internal direction, and have a landing ledge for each row.  A scaffolding and ladder are attached to the walls to allow easy access to each individual nest box. September 30, 2006.

This was our first dovecote, found on our very first afternoon of our dovecote quest in England. We couldn't see it from the road, and finally asked in Goring, the village just across the Thames from Streatley. We picked out an older man waiting in line at the post office, and he directed us right to it. Going from Goring into Streatley, the road crosses the Thames, passes a church, and comes to a crossroad with a light. Proceed straight through this, and just beyond some houses is a drive to the right that leads to some open land owned by the National Trust and an access to the Ridgeway path. There is space to park a car. The dovecote is downhill, to the east.  Unfortunately, it is on the other side of a barbed wired fence, with "beware of dog" signs all over, so we only looked at it from afar. September 10, 1998.

We found this dovecote on our fall 2006 trip, looking exactly as Cooke had described nearly a century ago.  It is however, no longer in quite as romantic a situation, being in a group of rather modern homes.   The dovecote itself remains attractive and in rather splendid condition, with the flat tiles and odd zinc cupola cover firmly in place. This photograph was taken September 28th, 2006, from the public residential road road that served the homes on both sides.