The Castle

This is a substantial villa built in 1816 by Joseph Medworth, incorporating reused materials from an earlier mansion. The original mansion, constructed in 1656 and designed by Peter Mills, served as the residence of Secretary Thurloe and was demolished in 1815. The villa is built of grey gault brick with reused stone dressings, and features three storeys plus a basement, with two projecting wings to the east. These wings have shallow slated hipped roofs and two symmetrical stacks.

The east facade features a main entrance approached by six stone steps that lead to a double, half-glazed door set within a double recessed elliptical brick arch. This arch is topped with a blind fanlight featuring interlacing glazing bars. Flanking the entrance are pseudo windows with stone cills. A matching wing on either side has a single nine-paned sash window on the first floor, set within a recessed segmental brick arch, and a sixteen-paned window above. The rendered first-floor section above the entrance is likely from the 19th century and was originally ornamented with a wooden balustrade.

The garden facade has seven bays and incorporates stone details reused from the original castle. The ground floor is rendered, while the first and second floors show rusticated stone quoins and moulded, offset stone bands. Stone window cills, architraves, and a moulded doorcase with carved stone brackets supporting a flat balustraded canopy decorate the entrance. The door is panelled and half-glazed and above it a balcony door, also half-glazed with a fanlight. Seven eight-paned sash windows are on the second floor, set in moulded wooden architraves, while six sixteen-paned sash windows with interlacing glazing bars at their heads are on the first floor. A further two recessed casement windows and three blind windows are found at ground floor level.

Inside, there is a notable panel of 14th or 15th-century glass depicting the martyrdom of St. Edmund. A central hall is flanked by two main rooms and contains a boxed staircase with passages leading to smaller rooms in the wings. Reused materials from the 17th-century castle include a stone floor, four panelled doors with shouldered and enriched architraves, three false doors, seven carved over-doors, and cartouches over the main street entrance. A section of a chimney piece in the drawing room and a moulded ceiling cornice are also examples of reused materials, as are some panelled doors in the basement.

The villa is designated Grade II* for its associations with Joseph Medworth, and indirectly with Peter Mills, who is believed to have designed the original 17th-century building from which so much material has been salvaged.