Plans to turn a decaying mansion into a family home have been lodged with planners.

The Great Tew estate is seeking permission from West Oxfordshire District Council to demolish parts of Great Tew House, a Grade II listed building. The existing Dower House and library would be renovated, with the addition of new buildings to make it into one large house.

The estate is owned by James Johnston and run by his son Nicholas Johnston, who plans to live in the new house.

The original house in the park was demolished in the early 18th century, with Dower House built on a different site later that century with the addition of the Gothic library. Other large extensions to the mansion were added over the years.

During the Second World War it was used as a school for evacuees and was then owned by Eustace Robb, passing to the Johnston family when he died in 1985.

There were plans in the early 1990s to convert the house into flats but they never went ahead.