Exterior
An interesting house in which successive enlargements have resulted in an entertaining confection of styles (such as would have warmed the heart of Osbert Lancaster), beginning with genuine late-Tudor, followed by genuine late-Georgian subsequently adorned with a Gothic Revival porch, and ending with Tudor-copyism on a large scale. It has an elaborated L-plan formed by the late-Tudor gatehouse range on a N-S axis with the multi-phase main domestic range linked to the S end of its E side on an E-W axis. The principal element of the N entrance front is the late C18 house, which is rendered and has a hipped slate roof. It is 3-storeyed in a symmetrical composition of 1:5:1 bays, the outer breaking forwards slightly, with a string-course over the ground floor and an eaves cornice with blocking-course; segmental-headed 12-pane sash windows to the 2 main floors and short 6-pane sashes to the 2nd floor. Attached to the centre, and bizarrely at odds with this demure Georgian design, is a tall 2-storey Perpendicular-Gothic style porch of sandstone ashlar, which has a Tudor-arched outer doorway with shafts and foliated spandrels (opening onto a simple round-headed inner doorway with panelled and glazed door and fanlight with Georgian tracery), a tall 2-centred arched 3-light window at 1st floor, with Perpendicular tracery, and a balustraded balcony to the top floor accessed by an enlarged window. Towards the right-hand end of the roof is a low hipped-roofed lantern to the staircase, and rising behind the centre of the ridge is a linear cluster of 6 tall Tudor-style octagonal chimney shafts (belonging to Vulliamy's addition). Wrapped round the E corner of this range, and projecting slightly, is an ashlar Tudor-style wing of Vulliamy's S range, 2 storeys and 2 bays, the left gabled. (E of this is a much later range of single-storey outbuilding.) At the W end a short 2-storey 2-bay continuation, rendered and windowed like the main range except that the 2nd bay is projected as a flat-roofed porch with round-headed arches at ground floor, links to the gatehouse range, which is also rendered.
The gatehouse range is long and 2-storeyed. The principal feature of its E front is a broad gabled centre which rises above eaves level and carries a large late-C19 crow-stepped ashlar bellcote with a clockface below and a tall delicately-fashioned weathervane finial above. At ground floor is the modernised portal of the coach-passage (see below) and above this a segmental-headed blind or blocked window. The portions to N and S of the centre differ, that to the S having higher eaves and a roof of graduated slates and 2 windows on each floor (all different) and that to the N a more steeply-pitched roof of small stone slates and five 12-pane sash windows at 1st floor, the first 3 smaller. Attached to the N end is a lower 1-bay addition. On the W side of this range, which is of rubble, the principal feature of interest is the original gatehouse, 3-storeyed and gabled, with a sunk-chamfer string-course over the ground floor and a thin chamfered one over the 1st floor. The W portal to the coach-passage, segmentally arched, has a surround of large blocks of creamy-white stone with sunk-chamfer moulding; the floor above has a restored 4-light transomed window and the top floor a 3-light mullioned window with a hoodmould. Inside the coach-passage are exposed ceiling beams and joists. At the N end of this side is a pair of C19 Tudor-arched coach-house doorways; attached to the N gable wall is a recent harmoniously-designed external staircase to domestic accommodation on the upper floor; and there are various altered or inserted windows to both the N and S portions, including dormers in the roofs. At the S end a short 2-storeyed kithchen wing projecting to the W has a large extruded chimney stack to its N side; and on its S side the E corner has a short turret bearing a louvred wooden lantern with an oversailing pyramidal roof.
On the S side of the main range Vulliamy's addition of 1845-6 is architecturally almost another house in itself, being in fact a close copy of an Elizabethan original in Kent (Franks, at Horton Kirby), but in sandstone ashlar rather than brick. It is 2½-storeyed over cellars, in a symmetrical design of 1:2:1:2:1 bays, the paired bays projecting and twin-gabled, the inner gables slightly smaller than the outer, and its roofline is ornamented by tall octagonal chimney shafts, both clustered and single. The inner of the W pair of bays has a Renaissance-style architrave to a recessed porch, with a round-headed arch flanked by Tuscan columns. The outer of each pair of has a 2-storey canted bay window with a pierced parapet. Throughout, both main floors have large mullion-and-transom windows; the attics have 3-light mullioned windows.
Set back at the W end is a 2-bay element (added by Prichard and Seddon in 1859), 2½-storeyed in similar style, with (inter alia) a doorway at ground floor and a pair of tall steeply-gabled dormers in the roof. Set back at the E end is a 1-storey 3-bay wing (added by Lawrence & Goodman in 1877), in Perpendicular style, which has 3 large multi-light transomed windows with quatrefoil top lights and hoodmoulds, a Lombard frieze and embattled parapet.