North Mymms Park With Adjoining Garden Walls And Ha Ha

North Mymms Park with Adjoining Garden Walls and Ha Ha

Country house built for Henry or Sir Ralph Coningsby around 1600, probably before 1596. The house was altered on its courtyard side in 1846–7 by E Blore, and extended on the same side in 1893–4 by Sir Ernest George and Yates.

The main building is constructed in an H-plan with long courtyard arms. It is built of red brick with burnt header diaper patterning and stone dressings, with plain tile roofs. The structure rises to 2 storeys with attics.

The 7-window entrance front features gabled projecting ends and a flat-parapeted porch bay, with all projections displaying flush stone quoins. The windows are 4 and 5 lights with 2 transoms. The porch has restored fluted Doric columns, a triglyph frieze and foliate spandrels, with a restored cement parapet running across the entire front.

The northeast and southwest elevations each have 5 windows with 3-light mullioned and transomed windows. The northeast side features a central 17th-century style stone Doric doorcase with fluted columns, bracketed cornice and scrolled overthrow (probably late 19th century in date), along with 3 gabled attic dormers retaining original stone mullioned windows. The southwest elevation has 2 similar dormers. Throughout the house, windows are diamond leaded casements.

The southeast courtyard elevation is primarily 1846–7 restored brickwork, displaying tall red brick chimney stacks with Tudor style square and polygonal shafts; those on the northeast side retain 17th-century bases. The main courtyard elevation shows projecting outer gable ends and a large central gabled oriel window with mullioned and transomed lights arranged in 25 lights, with a stair window to its right. The side wings project forward with corridors and show single gabled attic dormers of original build on each side. The wings terminate in square angle blocks incorporating 3-storey stair turrets topped with copper ogee domes, with gable ends on their southeast elevations.

A large extension to the southeast wing, built in 1893–4, rises 1–2 storeys. Its principal feature is a loggia with 3 arched lights, its interior barrel-vaulted with mosaic patterning. The loggia displays a richly carved marble frieze and arcade of Corinthian pilasters, with shallow niches and an elaborate bronze door on the southeast. This extension is constructed of red brick with stone banding and joins with southeast courtyard walls, corner gazebos and gates. The gazebos have stone square domes with cupids at the angles and paired Ionic pilasters at the corners. Wrought iron double gates and railings connect at the southeast corner.

A 18th-century garden wall runs for approximately 130 metres along the northwest side of the path to the church, featuring a wrought iron gate in an arched opening at its centre. This wall connects with a semicircular ha-ha with red brick walling of the same date. On the southeast side of the main entrance road, this connects with a 17th-century stretch of wall that joins the front garden walls near the house, these front walls dating to around 1846. They form two terraced gardens and display richly detailed wrought iron gates near the house. On the southwest side of the house are three walled gardens of 18th and 19th-century date, containing rose beds laid out by William Robinson in the late 19th century.

The interior of the house is predominantly 1893 in Elizabethan revival style. The entrance hall contains a large French chimneypiece of 1515 with rich guilloche and fluted decoration. The southwest ground floor room retains its complete original panelling and chimneypiece, the latter having an inserted crest dated 1655 with a stone surround and an overmantel in two tiers of three ornamental panels. The rear central room features a Jacobean style minstrels' gallery and newel staircase, while the upper front room contains a chimneypiece with an Elizabethan fireback.