Hilfield Castle

Large house, built circa 1798-99 by Jeffry Wyatt for G.Villiers. The building is constructed of rendered brick with slate roofs and is designed in a picturesque Gothic style. It is a symmetrical villa with an attached conservatory. The house consists of a 4-storey central tower flanked by octagonal turrets, 4-storey bays, and outer 2-storey bays with a later mansard attic. A basement runs throughout. The facade features five windows. A central porte cochère has three Tudor arches, diagonal buttresses, and a crenellated parapet. A blocked ground floor window to the right has three lights with cusped heads. A rectangular bay with mullioned windows is located to the left, and other windows have hood moulds. The turrets have slit windows, machicolations, and crenellations. A timber canted bay window with glazing bars and a pierced parapet sits over the porte cochère. Upper floors have casements with 2-centred heads. A crenellated parapet tops the building. The octagonal corner turrets have offsets, slit windows, machicolations, and crenellations. Numerous octagonal shafted chimneys are present. The left return features a canted timber bay on the ground floor. The garden front is similar in style and includes a canted ground floor verandah with Tudor arches and a crenellated parapet, flanked by large three-light windows. The canted centre of the tower has square-headed sashes on the first floor and casements with 2-centred heads above. Corner turrets are also present. A single-storey, four-bay, buttressed range to the left of the garden front has three-light windows with intersecting tracery, forming a "chapel" with a four-light window and crocketed finials to the diagonal buttresses, topped by a crenellated turret on the ridge. An additional bay exhibits an oriel window. The interior includes a vaulted entrance hall, an octagonal breakfast room, repositioned 17th-century panelling, stained glass, and ornamental bosses to the ribbed vault in the conservatory. A low crenellated wall with octagonal piers extends to the far right from the entrance front. Hilfield Castle was built as Hillfield Lodge, replacing Slys Castle. The garden (south) front differs only slightly from extant elevation drawings, representing one of Wyatt's earliest known designs.