Acton Court: The Evolution of an Early Tudor Courtier's House

For more than 400 years, the Acton family, and their successors the Poyntz family, occupied the substantial manor house at Iron Acton in South Gloucestershire. Successive remodelling and extensions of their thirteenth-century moated manor house reflected the growth in wealth of the Actons, and later the increasing prosperity and rise to royal favor of several Poyntz family heirs, culminating in a three-day visit in 1535 by Henry VIII, Queen Anne Boleyn and their retinue. More building development by the mid-1550s gave Acton Court the outwardly regular appearance of a courtyard house.