| Description | This country house was built 1700 1710, probably by Robert Benson, the first Lord Bingley, for himself. The house was damaged by fire in 1828, and restored in 1906 1914 by Detmar Blow for George Lane Fox. It is built of magnesian limestone ashlar, with stone slate roofs. The building is built in Classical style and has a linear composition with the main range linked by colonnades to the flanking pavilions. The main range is of double pile form and has a U shaped plan, with the projecting wings disguised by the treatment of the façade. It is three storeys high and is of thirteen bays (1:2:7:2:1), with the appearance of only two storeys given by ramped approaches and a raised forecourt to the piano nobile, thereby mostly concealing the basement. The impression of linear continuity in the façade is retained by confining the projected part of the wings to the piano nobile level (under flat roofs) and allowing the second storey to break forwards only slightly in these bays. This linear continuity is also retained by the bays at the extreme ends, which are set back and are only single depth, by an emphatic moulded cornice and balustraded parapet carried round the whole, and by the entablatures of the colonnades, which run out at the same level as the projected parts of the wings.
This house is the principal element of a total ensemble within the park planned and laid out in the French manner of Louis XIV and Le Notre. |