Chastleton House in England is where the rules of croquet originated, developed by an eccentric inventor named Walter Whitmore Jones, who also devised a game called Frogs and Toads that appealed to nobody, and a bootlace winder. Thanks to our member Caroline Townsend Green for bringing these little-known facts to our attention.

Chastleton House is a Jacobean country house at Chastleton, Oxfordshire, England, close to Moreton-in-Marsh. It has been owned by the National Trust since 1991.

• More information about the history of Chastleton House

Article added: Tuesday 21 November 2023