Gilston Park 400 Metres Along Drive West South West From Cumber Land Lodge

Gilston Park is a country house situated 400 metres along the drive west-southwest from Cumberland Lodge, near Gilston. Built in 1852 by the architect P C Hardwick for John Hodgson Esq (1805-82), it is marked with the initials 'IH' and date on the entrance porch. Contract drawings in the Hertfordshire Record Office, signed by H and R Holland, indicate that the house was originally designed in red brick with stone dressings, though it was ultimately built in coursed limestone rubble with ashlar dressings.

The building is a compactly planned, medium-sized country house in the Tudor style. It is constructed on a double-pile plan with a large entrance hall in the west range, flanked by a staircase to the north and library to the south. The dining room and drawing room, originally separated by a central vestibule in the east range, are now connected as one long room. The house displays steep slated roofs with moulded parapets, dormers, and gable parapets. Tall ashlar chimneys with moulded caps and bases rise prominently; there are also octagonal turrets with steep reticulated leadwork roofs.

The west front is dominated by a higher, battlemented square clock tower with corner fleche that masks the junction between the servants' wing and the main house. A battlemented bay window adjoins the tower, with two gables flanking a central three-storey porch. The porch's lower part is of ashlar, panelled between four tall octagonal shafts with spiral moulded tops, carried above a crenellated capping that supports four carved stone animals bearing shields. The Tudor-arched entrance door is six-panelled with cusped and sunk spandrels; a carved coat of arms in relief appears above, with monogram and date flanking it.

A three-storey stone and slate servants' wing with walled yard is attached to the north. The wing projects considerably on its west front with twin crow-stepped gables, five-light and three-light mullioned and transomed stone windows, and relieving arches beneath a recessed central door. A corner turret serves as a game larder, continuing the decorative Gothic treatment throughout.

The south front is irregular with two gables and a large stone-roofed, canted bay window. The east front of the house is more symmetrical, with three cross windows on the first floor on either side of a canted projecting two-storey battlemented bay. Two long, seven-light, buttressed and battlemented single-storey stone bay windows with flat roofs flank a garden entrance created in 1887, featuring a glass canopy and steps. A straight moulded parapet runs up into a steep central gable and is interrupted by stone gabled dormers with corner and central finials, flanked by two gabled dormers with cusped bargeboards set back on the roof slope. An octagonal turret adjoins the north end.

Extending eastward from the house is a picturesque group of service buildings: the original gabled and bargeboarded billiard room with a large rooflight in the form of a gabled louvre; a polygonal buttressed smoking room dated 1887 (possibly a rebuild of the original polygonal kitchen from 1852) with pointed slate roof, gabled vestry, and crocketed finial; and a glass and iron conservatory, probably also from 1887, with low stone walls and a geometrical hipped roof with raised lantern. Within the conservatory is a grotto pool with quatrefoil pierced terracotta benching.

The interiors retain their original character. The baronial entrance hall features a panelled timber ceiling and a stone hooded Gothic fireplace. The library retains its original fittings with heraldic glass in the bay window. A wide wooden staircase with arcaded balustrade and heavy Tudor octagonal posts with ogee caps rises from the hall. The dining room contains a fire surround with sixteenth-century Renaissance wreathed roundel heads carved on inset panels, possibly salvaged from New Place. The drawing room has a geometric moulded plaster ceiling and a carved wooden overmantle in Jacobean style, dating to circa 1852.

The building underwent several later modifications. The tower was altered and an east door formed. A smoking room and conservatory were added, and the servants' wing was extended to the west by the architect A W Blomfield in 1887. A bay window on the north of the entrance was raised to two storeys in 1903 by A C Blomfield, with drawings for these works preserved in the Hertfordshire Record Office.

Gilston Park is an outstanding mid-nineteenth-century country house in the Tudor style by P C Hardwick, virtually unchanged since its completion and retaining substantially original interiors. Two portfolios of drawings relating to the house are held in the Hertfordshire Record Office.