The Lyth

The Lyth is a small country house, largely dating from 1819, with subsequent minor additions and alterations. It is constructed of painted brick, with a low-pitched hipped slate roof featuring deep eaves, a central open-well staircase, and stacks positioned either side of a central projection and to the rear. The house is two storeys high, with a continuous first-floor stone cill band. The facade is arranged in a 1:1:1 bay layout, with the central section projecting. The windows are glazing bar sashes; the first floor features a tripartite window in the centre, with dummy sashes above the left-hand ground-floor window and flanking the ground floor on either side. The ground-floor windows are 15-paned. A central entrance is accessed via wide, half-glazed double doors with flanking vertical lights and a rectangular overlight. A cast-iron verandah with trellised supports extends to the left and right returns, the return to the left being in 1:2:1 bays. The right return features four widely spaced glazing bar sashes on each floor. Contemporary, lower hip-roofed service ranges are attached to the rear, forming a square courtyard.

Inside, the central hall contains a wood open-well staircase, which is top-lit by a circular lantern and has two slender wrought-iron balusters to each tread. Several contemporary fireplaces and plaster cornices are found in the ground-floor rooms, many of which have panelled window shutters. The morning room, to the left of the entrance, contains Dufour wallpaper dating from around 1815-20, portraying journeys of Antenor; this wallpaper is original to the house. The dining room, to the right of the entrance, contains tapestries by John Vanderbank of Soho, dating from around 1730. These tapestries are framed and fixed to the walls; the two large scenes on the end walls depict "The Return from Harvest" and "The Gipsies Fortune-Telling," with "Backgammon Players" attached. Above the fireplace is "The Scene outside an Ale-house," and an entre-fenêtre depicts a boy with a feathered hat and stick facing a man driving two cows. The tapestries have a narrow grey rope border, and a tradition exists (though undocumented) that they may have originated from Windsor Castle.