The Mansion

The Mansion is a country house, now a school, built circa 1682-83 by Sir Christopher Wren for Henry Guy, Secretary of the Treasury to Charles II. It was altered around 1786 for Sir Drummond Smith, a London banker, and purchased in 1872 by Baron Lionel de Rothschild, the first practicing Jew to sit as a Member of Parliament, as a wedding present for his son Sir Nathaniel (later Lord) de Rothschild. The house was greatly altered externally after 1872 for the Rothschild family, partly rebuilt but retaining Wren's plan and conception, with the interior extensively refitted in the manner of Wren's period.

The building is constructed of red brick with lavish stone dressings and slated Mansard roofs. It comprises a basement, two storeys and Mansarded attics, with a near symmetrical entrance front on the north and a similar garden front on the south. The plan is remarkable, with smaller rooms concentrated in parallel north and south ranges and the space between occupied entirely by a double height great hall and double height staircase on a common east-west axis, separated only by an open colonnade on the ground floor carrying a gallery over. This gallery fronts the landing to the staircase and extends through the wings at each end on the same axis as the entrance from the north. The staircase is inset from the west end to allow the original kitchens to project at low level without obstruction to the three windows lighting the stair. The hall is lit only from the east, at two levels.

The entrance front is composed of 2-2-3-2-2 bays, divided by channelled pilasters and with a cornice between storeys and a modillioned cornice and balustrade above. Windows have architrave surrounds and cornices, with cills bearing consoles, aprons and cill bands. They feature triple keystones and plate glass sashes. The centre has a large stone round-arched porte cochère with a balustrade over it, and segmental pedimented stone-framed dormer windows rise through the parapet, with an elaborate three-part dormer in the centre. A wide Mansard roof crowns the centre, with similar pavilion roofs to the right and left. The garden front is similar in treatment but lacks the porte cochère.

The interior is very elaborate, featuring a huge central hall of two storeys with a vaulted ceiling and the great staircase at one end. The decoration is throughout in late 17th-century style. There is good plasterwork and other features elsewhere in the house. Much of the interior is in late 17th-century style, and on close inspection some of it may be original work of the Wren period. The conception of the great hall and staircase is original and extremely remarkable for the late 17th century, similar to the rather later arrangements at Easton Neston. Roger North, who was acquainted with Wren, in his treatise Of Building confirms the house is by Wren, describes the spatial arrangement of hall, stair and gallery, and also notes a variation from the design as built from that first intended, with the entrance steps being within the north range rather than in front of it. Two drawings in the RIBA Collection show the original design.

Sir Drummond Smith's work in the 1780s remains in the refurbished rooms on the ground floor of the south range, which feature elaborate plaster ceilings. After 1872, the Rothschilds provided further bedrooms in French-style pavilion roofs, enriched the exterior, added a large saloon in a pavilion to the south west, rebuilt the east end of the hall as a canted two-storey bay but renewed the cantilevered gallery across this end at first floor level, installed a hydraulic lift, and provided kitchens and bakery in grand style in glazed brick basements. Marble reliefs in the saloon were created by W.S. Rome in 1889, and a chimneypiece incorporates a marble prow of a ship and life-size female figures.