It was in the brick-built Oxfordshire villa pictured below that William Morris, founder of Morris Motors, lived from 1933 until his death 30 years later. Featured in Simon Jenkins's England's 1,000 Best Houses, the building survives as the complete, furnished home of a 1930s industrialist who was at once the richest man in England - and the nation's greatest philanthropist.

"For me the most extraordinary aspect of Nuffield Place is its modesty," said Dr Steve Head, coordinator of a campaign to save this period gem for the nation.

Set high in the wooded Chilterns, Nuffield Place is packed with bygones that conjure an aura of his age: limed-oak panelling and gold-ragwork walls; electric lights graced with mock candle wax; a walnut cabinet radiogram and statuettes of Scottish terriers (so favoured a breed in the inter-war years).

Here, too, are the long-case clocks which Morris (pictured above) repaired himself and liked to have keeping good time; and the exercise horse for keeping fit.

Also redolent of the man are the ingenious cocktail cabinet, and the automatic match dispenser which the gadget-loving tycoon must have offered with some pride to his guests relaxing in the drawing room, amid Persian rugs and comfy wing chairs.

The sheet music for Songs for Smokers, written by Cockney music hall star Albert Chevalier recalls the magnate's own fondness for tobacco.

"Morris and his wife grew up in ordinary terraced houses in East Oxford," Dr Head continued, "but unlike many modern millionaires, they didn't live a life of luxury and didn't show-off with collections of paintings or antiques.

"For influential visitors, the house has a rather stylish and impressive formal drawing room, dining room and guest bedrooms. The Morrises themselves felt more comfortable in their small private sitting room/study with their Scottie dogs, hardly bigger than the parlours of the houses where they grew up."

The whole intensely atmospheric property is scheduled to go on sale after the last public opening in September 2008, and Dr Steve Head's group is campaigning with some urgency to purchase it.

Nuffield Place deserves to be saved for the nation so that future generations, in enjoying its unique ambience, may also recall one of the greatest Englishmen of the 20th century.

William Morris began his working life at 16 James Street, Oxford, as a repairer of bicycles in the shed at the bottom of his father's garden. With a starting capital of no more than £4 he went on to design his first car, the bullnosed Morris, at a garage at Longwall Street. Large-scale production later moved to Cowley where, in 1913, he introduced the first Morris Oxford car.

During the First World War the factory was turned over to making munitions, but in the Roaring Twenties it really came into its own. By 1925, the annual output of Morris motor cars was 56,000 and the manufacturer's mass production methods had earned him a reputation as The English Henry Ford'.

In 1933, Morris bought Nuffield Place, near Wallingford. Created a Baron the following year, he took the name Lord Nuffield in tribute to his new home.

The house itself was built in 1914, on a paddock topping a long hill from Wallingford. Its design was by Oswald Partridge Milne, a pupil of Sir Edwin Lutyens, and reflects the latter's gift for adapting traditional style to modern needs.

Lord Nuffield owned nearby Huntercombe Golf Course, where he played his favourite sport, and acquired the Place to be close to the links.

Mature trees frame the tall-chimneyed villa which stands in four-acre gardens with yew hedges, rose pergola and rockery.

Among his additions to the original house was a handsome billiard room, seen to the left as you enter the house.

As Dr Head indicated, however, the downstairs sitting room offered a more intimate setting for Lord Nuffield and his wife, Elizabeth. They would relax here together by the mottle-tiled fireplace, perhaps listening to the BBC on the Bakelite wireless. The television is a vintage item too, an HMV model in walnut veneer, bought in 1955.

Though some furniture in the house is antique, much was custom-made by Cecil A Halliday of Oxford, and is of skilled 20th-century craftsmanship.

The dining room table and set of eight chairs are examples; and the same room features shadowless strip-lighting behind the cornice - an introduction of the Nuffields.

Upstairs, Elizabeth's bedroom has the best views in the house, across the garden to the tree-stacked Wittenham Clumps on the skyline.

Lady Nuffield had worked as a dressmaker before their marriage, and her workbox can be seen in her bedroom, filled with a needlewoman's essentials, while a little dress is displayed on the bed, made by her for a friend's child.

For a business mogul, Lord Nuffield was remarkably unostentatious - indeed frugal in his living. The floor of his own bedroom is covered with what is reputed to be sewn-together patches of carpet intended for the interior of cars. The room also contains his tool cupboard containing cobblers' equipment with which he repaired his own shoes. Here too is his pickled appendix.

The magnate had endured a bad reaction to anaesthetics when he had an operation to remove it. Thereafter he became a generous patron of pain-killing research. In 1937 he endowed four Medical Professorship at the University of Oxford, at a cost of £2m. One of the Chairs was in Anaesthesia - the first such appointment in the British Empire.

Dr Steve Head told me: Every time I visit the house, I spot an extra detail, some perfect contemporary object that opens a window through to the 1930s, or shows the can-do attitude of Lord Nuffield. There is a tatty bedside lamp screwed into the head of his bed, with dangling cotton covered flex that would chill the heart of a modern electrician. Rather than buy a proper light, William Morris just did it himself.

For Morris, having money meant giving decent employment to working people, and the profits went into - in today's money - about a £1bn worth of donations, mainly to medical and social causes.

Nuffield College, the Nuffield Trust and the Nuffield Foundation all owe their existence to the philanthropist. Upstairs at his home, a converted bathroom houses a vintage iron lung which recalls his donation of such machines to many hospitals. The appliance has car-handle doors, and its timber frame kept his woodworkers occupied at a time when the switch to all-metal vehicles threatened unemployment.

Amid the homely and practical items, it comes as a surprise to peer into the dressing room. Here are the rich velvet and ermine coronation robes which Lord and Lady Nuffield wore at Westminster Abbey on May 12, 1937. Lord Nuffield had ordered them for the coronation of Edward VIII, a friend and golfing companion. Following the controversial Abdication, the robes were required to honour King George VI and his wife Queen Elizabeth.

One of Nuffield Place's great curiosities is a scroll given to the industrialist when he was made Freeman of the City of Coventry. It was issued on the very day of the Abdication, and the script shows Edward VIII's name crossed out with George VI's inserted above.

Lord and Lady Nuffield had no children, and when the magnate died in 1963, Nuffield College inherited the house and estate to be preserved intact.

Formed 20 years ago, The Friends of Nuffield Place is a group of enthusiastic volunteers whose object is to maintain and promote this important piece of 20th century history. As well as stewarding on open days, the Friends are active in collecting memorabilia and in encouraging educational group visits to Nuffield Place. The college's recent decision to sell the property has provoked concern.

"The house is enormously popular with schools and school children," Dr Head told me. "It is a hands-on treasure chest for learning about recent history and the way people lived in the 1930s, and it is often used to back up design technology, science, geography and maths in the national curriculum.

"Nuffield Place and its contents are too exciting and important to be lost from the public. The college needs to reinvest its value to support its teaching programme, and we must work with them to raise support to keep house and contents together.

"The Friends of Nuffield Place have a big task ahead. We need to raise between £2 to £3m to buy the house from Nuffield College. We are looking for support from local businesses, keen individuals, and national funds," he explained.

"This is part of Oxfordshire's heritage, and there must be thousands of local families with a direct connection back to the Cowley works, or to one of Nuffield's hospital departments. Meanwhile, we are talking to the National Trust, who would be the ideal long term owners, and could manage the property for public enjoyment far into the future."

n Nuffield Place is open 11 times a year starting with Bluebell Opening Day on Sunday, April 27; and on the second and fourth Sundays of the month from May to September inclusive. Other times and out of season visits by groups and schools can be organised in advance with the Friends of Nuffield Place on 01491 641 224. If you have ideas or offers to assist the campaign, call Dr Steve Head, on 07923 473907. For further details on the house, visit the website: www.nuffield-place.com