Sir, West Oxfordshire can boast a clutch of large country houses and their estates in close proximity: Blenheim, Ditchley and Cornbury Park.

They are rightly looked on as part of our national heritage and have played an important role in the evolution and protection of the landscape.

So now that another member of the Spencer-Churchill family would like to leave his mark on this area of the countryside, by building a large neo-Palladian mansion, why should a group like CPRE want to oppose such a scheme?

The answer is that the values we now place on the countryside, and the pressures on it, are quite different from those of the 18th century.

The Evenlode Valley at Fawler is of particular aesthetic value. Sited on the edge of the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and bordering Cornbury Park, it is worthy of protection as it is.

It is for this reason that stringent planning controls apply and, generally speaking, large intrusive buildings are not allowed to alter the character of the landscape.

What we now value, and what the 18th century did not, is the undeveloped landscape with its contrast of woods and open fields, river valley and barer upland, and our appreciation will not be increased by having it crowned by a large house, however lavish.

Lord Edward Spencer- Churchill and his architect aspire to the ideals of their 18th-century forebears, but such ideals are no longer appropriate.

This scheme will make no significant contribution architecturally, will have no useful influence on the local economy and will succeed only in imposing a dominant and intrusive feature on a beautiful landscape.

Gillian Salway, Chairman, Campaign to Protect Rural England, West Oxfordshire