Kyre Park House

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 19/09/2019

SO 66 SW 6/22

KYRE CP KYRE Kyre Park House

(Formerly listed as Kyre Park, Kyre Park)

18.4.66

GV II Country house in landscaped park. Fourteenth-century origins; repaired and extended circa 1600 for Sir Edward Pytts by John Chaune of Bromsgrove; remodelled for Sir Edmund Pytts by W and D Hiorne, 1753-56; restored and extended c1880 with further major alterations circa 1940. Some original sandstone rubble walling survives. Mainly brick, rendered to south-west, with ashlar plinth and dressings. Slate roofs, partly hipped behind plain parapets with ball finials (these survive only at eastern corners) and brick stacks with moulded ashlar caps. Roughly T-shaped plan.

Original part lies to west and was probably a fortified house. Circa 1600 a hall was added to the north-east. In the mid-eighteenth century a new south front was added and the west range was remodelled. The building was extended to the east in the late nineteenth century and in the twentieth century the sixteenth-century hall was demolished, a new north front built and further alterations made to the south and east fronts. Two storeys and attic with ashlar plinth and modillion cornice at attic storey level.

West elevation: 1:3:1 bays; the central bays break forward slightly and are pedimented. The ground floor windows have moulded ashlar architraves and keyblocks. The outer bays have fifteen-pane sashes, first floor twelve-pane sashes and six-pane attic windows. The central part has large ground floor fifteen-pane sashes that reach to plinth level, first floor twelve-pane sashes and two-light attic casements. The main entrance is situated at the centre of the north elevation and has a large re-sited Georgian style portico of probably late nineteenth-century date.

Interior: very little survives of the eighteenth century interiors apart from the principal staircase. This is built of softwood and has a large open well, slender turned balusters, a moulded wreathed handrail, panelled dado and Chinese Chippendale style fretwork detailing. Part of the late sixteenth century stair-case has been re-used at attic storey level and has large square newel posts with shaped finials, moulded handrails and shaped, pierced splat balusters.

Kyre park was the seat of the Pytts family from 1576 to the early twentieth century.

(Country Life, xvii and xxiv, 1917; The Antiquary, xxi, p 202, 261, xxii, 24, 50; Colvin, H: A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600-1840, 1978; VCH, IV, p 274-81; BoE, p 210).