The Fermor family were lords of the manor of Tusmore from 1606 until 1828, and Tusmore House was their family seat from about 1625 until 1810. In 1828 the last William Fermor died without a male heir and left the estate to his adopted daughter and her husband, John and Maria Turner Ramsay. In 1857 the Ramsays sold the estate to Henry Howard, 2nd Earl of Effingham. In 1929 the heir of Henry Alexander Gordon Howard, 4th Earl of Effingham sold the estate to Vivian Smith, a merchant banker who in 1938 was created 1st Baron Bicester of Tusmore. Late in the 1990s the Smiths sold Tusmore to the Syrian billionaire Wafic Saïd.
