AN INDIAN spiritual group who run a historic Oxfordshire manor as a retreat centre have applied for planning permission to make some alterations.

The Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University, which runs a spiritual centre at Nuneham Park house near Oxford, is seeking to knock down down a wall.

The Grade II-listed mansion was built in the 1750s a 'Palladian' villa for Earl Harcourt.

The university is carrying out a major program of renovations to upgrade the deteriorating and dated heated and plumbing system.

This will include renovating the bathrooms, boiler re-location, internal upgrades, disabled facilities

improvement, formation of a new kitchen and laundry and some insulation improvements to the internal areas.

The land and buildings were leased to The Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University in 1993.