Bayford House

Bayford House is a large house of complex build phases, combining a late medieval rear wing with later additions and substantial early 18th-century remodelling.

The rear wing dates to the late medieval period and incorporates roof rafters from the 13th or 14th century. The front range was constructed in the early 17th century as a two-storey hall house, then heightened to three storeys in the early 18th century. The building was subsequently enlarged to the west, refronted, and given a south service range. The stables, built parallel to this service range, are dated 1729. Early 19th-century additions include a new staircase, porch, ground floor windows, and a service extension.

The rear wing is constructed with timber frame, largely replaced or encased in red brick. The front range is faced in plum red brick with lighter red dressings. The main house has a stone coping to the parapet. Steep old red tile pitched roofs cover the rear wing and rear slope of the south service wing, while parallel hipped slate roofs to the main house are hidden behind the parapet and front slope of the service wing.

The building is three storeys and a cellar, seven windows wide, set in its own grounds facing east. The old two-storey rear wing with attics extends to the southwest, from which a lower two-storey, five-bay service wing extends south.

The symmetrical east front of the main block features a raised band below the second-floor windows. Sash windows with flat gauged arches and plastered reveals are arranged as 3/3 panes on the second floor and 6/6 on the first floor flanking the central entrance. The outer pairs of ground floor windows were replaced by single 6/9-pane sashes in the early 19th century, set at floor level. An eight-panel fielded door is sheltered by a pilastered screen with panelled reveals and a trellised porch with tented roof. A pilaster buttress at the northeast angle marks where the north end wall appears to have been rebuilt in the early 19th century, incorporating chimneys and a central broad recess as if intended for a stair window.

The polite west facade of the south service wing has a plinth, platband, and parapet. Flat gauged arches frame flush-box sash windows, those on the ground floor with 6/6 panes and those on the first floor with 4/8 panes except for a triple sash window replacing a pair next the main house. Windows are blocked on the second floor (2nd from south) and first floor (3rd from south). The old rear wing retains early 18th-century flush-box sashes with segmental tops, 6/6 panes, and heavy ovolo-moulded glazing bars. Ovolo-moulded shutters remain on the first floor of the front range, though sashes were replaced later. The staircase rises in a separate structure in the northwest angle with the rear wing.

The interior of the main block is arranged in three cells from north to south: the drawing room (formerly the parlour), the entrance hall (formerly the hall or principal room), and the dining room (probably former service rooms). A very large chimney stack occupies much space in the entrance hall, backing onto the drawing room, which now has its own chimney in the north end wall. This internal stack served the two rooms of the former two-storey 17th-century house. A screen of Doric columns at the rear gives onto the staircase, now dating to the early 19th century but presumably on the site of older stairs. A similar columnar screen shields the buffet area at the west end of the dining room, with superimposed columns or features continuing up through the two floors above. The structural line marked by the columns is presumably that of the rear wall of the 17th-century house.

The roof of the rear wing contains smoke-blackened rafters with lap joints that have been re-used. The wing is unusually wide and may represent an aisled hall with later floors inserted. The staircase has a balustrade dating to around 1700 with a heavy moulded rail and spiral fluted vases as pedestals to turned baluster shafts like Doric columns, with a turned newel. The drawing room in the front block has an 18th-century foliated plaster cornice. The dining room has leopards' heads and egg-and-dart bedmould to the cornice. Eighteenth-century fireplaces are present throughout. A moulded plank 17th-century door remains in the attic. An Art Nouveau fireplace is located on the ground floor of the rear wing.