Description

SP 70 NW KINGSEY HADDENHAM ROAD

6/322 Tythrop House

26.8.49
I
GV

Country house. Early C17 E-plan house, remodelled by 1680. Interior
plaster work by William Morris I, Katherine Morris and William Morris II,
1730s. Altered early C19 and restored 1960s. Brick, the bulk of the
north front stuccoed with incised masonry lines. Timber modillion
cornices. Hipped tiled roofs. 2 storeys plus dormers and basement
under early C17 parts. South or garden front of 9 bays with projecting
centre bay carried up to gabled attic storey window with segmental
pediment. East front of 9 bays, the centre 3 set forward with 3rd
storey crowned by balustrade. North or entrance front has 3 bay
projecting wings each end and 5 bay centre with modern pedimented
porch flanked by colonnade. West elevation has single storey 3 bay
addition at south west. Plinth, band course and modillion cornice
surrounds house, except 3 storey centre of east front which has
moulded brick cornice and pulvinated frieze between 2nd and 3rd
storeys. C19 sashes, except north front, where 5 centre bays have
1730s sashes with thick glazing bars. South front has 3 gabled
leaded-light dormers either side of centrepiece and evidence of
Caroline cement architraves to previous cross casement windows.
Central glazed door in stone doorcase of 2 Corinthian columns, entablature,
bracketed dentil cornice and segmental pediment. First floor
window architraved with enriched scroll supports. East front
has one dormer each side of raised centre bays. Left hand middle bay
windows blank, outer windows of right bays blank windows. End walls
of wings on north front brick with 2 sashes each. Early C18 sashes on
north front have keystones. West elevation has 6 windows to first floor,
only centre 2 glazed, others blank. 2 sashes only on ground floor.
Stacks tall with panelled faces and moulded cornice heads. Interior.
Full height Hall with first floor balustraded balcony on all four sides,
supported on large acanthus modillion brackets. Egg and dart cornices.
Plasterwork by Morris includes portrait medallions of Homer, Virgil (?)
Milton and Pope. To west of hall is Staircase Bay with very fine
elaborate pierced balustrade panels to staircase carved in floral scrolls
inhabited by wyverns and snakes. Carved in elm. Foliage carved
strings and soffits with egg and dart corniced hand rails. Later
acanthus console to lowest newel. Dogleg plan. Ornate pendants below
newels. Plaster work panels and full length figures of Juno and
Athena, busts of Mercury, Mars and Zeus. Timber doorcases and
overdoors with bay leaf pulvinated friezes and door surrounds. Corniced
tops. Modillion cornice. Staircase carving attributed to Edward
Pierce II (1630-95), mainly on stylistic grounds (c.f. Sudbury Hall,
Derbyshire). Centre room on first floor south front has pre- 1680
timber cornice with pulvinated bay leaf frieze below box cornice. Bay
leaf architraved doorcases. Other rooms on both floors have modillion
box cornices and egg and dart corniced dado rails and enriched skirting
boards. Upstairs rooms in west wing have dentil cornices and acanthus
friezed dado rails. Left hand ground floor room has marble fireplace
from Ashburnham House with Corinthian order. Victorian reeded doorcases.
Centre ground floor room has fireplace with console brackets and festoons,
and overmantel with mirror in lugged surround flanked by pilasters and
topped by scroll pediment, probably 1730s. Right ground floor
room has egg and dart architraved windows. Overdoors with
foliage friezes below cornices. Hall has Rococo centrepiece plaster
work to ceiling later than rest of scheme. The history of the house
is complex, but appears to have been built for Henry Spiller after 1619.
The original one room deep E-plan house with hall and staircase bay
was doubled in thickness by the addition of a suite of rooms along the
south before 1680 and the earlier house altered and remodelled for
James Herbert I, 6th child of the 4th Earl of Pembroke, who died in
1676, to be succeeded by his son, also James. James Herbert IV, who
owned Tythrop from 1721 to his death in 1749 employed the Morris family
to redecorate the interior. In the late 18th or early 19th century the
house was rendered and the attic storey replaced by a low pitched slate
roofed attic. The original roof form was reinstated in 1960s, and the
render removed from all but the north front. The east, west fronts and the
north elevations of the wings were cased in new brickwork. County Life,
27 February 1904. An engraving by Henry Winstanley dated 1680 shows Tythrop
and its stable block in detail, including leaded cross casement windows.

Listing NGR: SP7395307022

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Tythrop Park at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q7861845

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Herefordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Suffolk: West: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Cambridgeshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Yorkshire West Riding: Leeds, Bradford and the North (Pevsner Architectural Guides / Buildings of England)
• 
  Building Small Projects (New Best of Fine Woodworking)
• 
  The green guide for historic buildings: how to improve the environmental performance of listed and historic buildings