Langleybury House & Film Centre

Langleybury House & Film Centre

Country house with service block, originally built as a residence and later converted to school and flats. The main house was constructed between 1725 and 1728, as dated on rainwater heads, for Sir R. Raymond, Lord Chief Justice. It was substantially altered and remodelled for W.J. Loyd around 1860–70, and further extended for E.H. Loyd around 1890. The building is constructed of red brick with stone and stucco dressings, with slate roofs throughout.

The main house is a seven-bay square triple-pile three-storey structure. It features tall flush frame glazing bar sashes with segmental arched key-blocked heads and stone sills; the top storey has smaller sashes without key blocks. Stucco quoins and a stone cornice support a 19th-century balustraded parapet with urns. A late 19th-century link block with a canted front, comprising three bays of sashes and a string course between storeys, replaces the original passage connecting to the seven-bay two-storey service block.

The entrance front features a ground-floor central 19th-century closed porch with a pedimented Corinthian doorcase, flanked by sashes matching the main block. Stone quoins and a cornice with blocking course frame the composition. Two cross-axial stacks flank the central bays. The right return to the garden displays no glazing bars except on the top storey and no key blocks; the ground floor has a central 19th-century ashlar canted bay with applied Doric order and plinth, with rendered plat bands above.

The rear, original entrance front follows a 2:3:2 arrangement with slightly projecting centre bays. A ground-floor central 19th-century rectangular ashlar bay with applied Doric order is flanked by first and second-floor left dummy windows. To the right, an extra 19th-century bay set further back reuses the early 18th-century doorcase—Doric with half columns, featuring Raymond's initials and coronet in metopes and paterae in the mutule-blocked soffit to the cornice. To the left of the main block, the two-storey late 19th-century canted link block incorporates three bays of sashes as found on the main block, with a string course between storeys and cornice to balustraded parapet.

The early 18th-century service block projects forward and to the left, in a 1:5:1 arrangement with projecting end bays. Its central entrance displays eight fielded-panelled double doors within a narrow-panel architrave surround, with carved brackets supporting a hooded cornice and fielded-panelled soffit. Flush frame thick glazing bar sashes with segmental heads, larger and key-blocked on the ground floor, light the main elevation. The first floor has a central window with plain raised brick surround, moulded sill, and apron panel. A plat band rises to a stone-coped parapet with raised piers on the outer bays, ramping twice to centre with a small open balustrade in raised panel. A late 19th-century mansard attic with dormers surmounts the block, flanked by two cross-axial stacks and end stacks. An empty timber bell-turret sits on the ridge. Two-bay returns feature pilaster strips; the right side has blind openings with a first-floor sash, rendered to the left. The rear parapet ramps to centre as at the front. The left return of the main block behind the service block has a recessed centre with two large 19th-century sashes in original openings to the staircase. Late 19th-century three-, two- and one-storey blocks and outshuts were added to the rear in the angle between main and service blocks.

Interior features include an early 18th-century chimneypiece reset in the late 19th-century entrance hall. A dog-leg stair within an open well features bulbous balusters and a broad moulded handrail, with bolection panelling. A secondary 18th-century stair has turned balusters, moulded handrail, and surviving original dados and box cornices on the first floor. Late 19th-century neo-Carolean plasterwork beneath the staircase is copied from The King's Lodge, Bridge Road. The Library contains a Zodiac ceiling.

Walls of 2 to 3 metres height are attached to the left front and rear and right front of the main structure. The wall to the rear left has moulded stone caps to piers.