Built / Designed For: Samuel Sandys, 1st Baron Sandys

House & Family History: Legend has it that the 3rd Baron Sandys was served a precursor to Worcestershire sauce while serving in India with the East India Company in the 1830s. So taken was he with this fermented fish, vinegar, molasses, and garlic sauce that he commissioned, upon his return to his native Worcestershire, local pharmacists John Wheeley Lea and William Henry Perrins to recreate the sauce for him. The resulting company, Lea & Perrins, continues to manufacture the famous Worcestershire sauce today (see "Images" section). Lovely though this story is, scholars have said that there is no evidence that any member of the Sandys family ever visited India. With the death of the 7th Baron Sandys in 2013, followed by the death of his widow, Ombersley was listed for sale in 2017, together with 39 acres, for £3.5 million.

Collections: On September 17, 2024, Chorley's auctioned the library from Ombersley Court, which included many Latin and Greek books from the collection of the 2nd Baron Sandys, a noted classical scholar. Highlights from the sale included 1652's "A Lapidary, or The History of Precious Stone: With Cautions for Undeceiving of all Those that Deal with Precious Stones" by Thomas Nichols, the first book written on gemstones in English; a very rare early printing of the "Provisional Articles of the Treaty of Paris," signed in type by the British commissioner Richard Oswald and the American commissioners John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, and Henry Laurens (the first document that recognized America's independence from Britain); and the first English edition of "The Necromancer, or The Tale of the Black Forest" by Karl Friedrich Kahler.

John Bernard (J.B.) Burke, published under the title of A Visitation of the Seats and Arms of the Noblemen and Gentlemen of Great Britain and Ireland, among other titles: 2.S. Vol. I, p. 123, 1854.

Country Life: CXIII, 34, 94, 152, 1953.

House Listed: Grade I

Park Listed: Grade II

Past Seat / Home of: Samuel Sandys, 1st Baron Sandys (second creation), 1725-70; Edwin Sandys, 2nd Baron Sandys, 1770-97; Mary Hill, Marchioness of Downshire and 1st Baroness Sandys (third creation), 1797-1836; Arthur Moyses William Hill, 2nd Baron Sandys (third creation), 1836-60; Marcus Cecil Sandys, 3rd Baron Sandys, 1860-63; Augustus Frederick Arthur Sandys, 4th Baron Sandys, 1863-1904; Michael Edwin Marcus Sandys, 5th Baron Sandys, 1904-48; Arthur Fitzgerald Sandys Hill, 6th Baron Sandys, 1948-61; Richard Michael Oliver Hill, 7th Baron Sandys, 1961-2013; Sandys family here from 1725 until 2013.

Current Ownership Type: Individual / Family Trust

Primary Current Ownership Use: Private Home

House Open to Public: No

Historic Houses Member: No