Braywick House

Braywick House is a large country house with a laundry block, now used as offices. The core of the house dates back to the 17th century, with the main front dated 1675. It was altered and refurbished in 1984. The house is constructed of brick, with some areas painted, and has a mansard roof covered in Cumberland stone slates. Originally planned around a rectangular central staircase, it later incorporated a laundry block on the north west side and an extension to the south west.

Braywick House is two storeys and attics, with the laundry block being one storey and partly two storeys high. There are three large chimneys with clay pots on the main part of the building. The south east front, likely the original entrance front, is symmetrical with seven bays. It features a moulded brick plinth and a string course above the first floor. A carved wooden cornice runs along the top. The windows are sash windows with glazing bars, set within moulded architraves with stone cills. The central three bays are recessed and topped with two pedimented dormers; the central bay has windows with elaborately moulded, eared architraves. The outer sections, each with two bays, each have a single similar dormer. Lead rainwater pipes run in the return angles, terminating in a lead hopper inscribed "P 16 75 WM."

The south west front is similar to the south east front but has five bays and a 20th-century distyle Doric porch approached by three concrete steps. A six-fielded panel moulded door, set within a moulded architrave, is located in the second bay from the left. To the left, a three-bay section exhibits a plinth, plat band, and a moulded cornice at a higher level. The ground floor windows here have floating moulded cornices.

The laundry block has a five-bay front. A gabled section with an open pediment and an oculus in the tympanum rises from the center, with a square sash window above and a Venetian window below. A bellcote sits on the ridge, topped with a ball finial and weathervane. A one-bay, single-storey section is attached to the right, and three bays similar to the left complete the front, all featuring round-headed sash windows with glazing bars. Further adjoining the former stable block is a three-bay section of the main house with old sash windows, the gauged brick arches of which are scalloped at the bottom. These ground floor windows also have floating moulded cornices.

The interior includes a conference room off the entrance hall, which has a plaster ceiling decorated with scrolled floral and leaf ornament, a guilloche in the central panel, a moulded and dentilled cornice with honeysuckle and acanthus leaf ornament, a triglyph frieze, and ball flower decoration. Two six-panelled doors, one disused, lead to the entrance hall, which features panelling and bead and reel ornament on window shutters. The doors have moulded architraves and dentilled cornices. A front office on the right of the entrance hall has thin Rococo plasterwork on the walls and ceiling. The geometrical staircase features curved metal balusters and a wreathed handrail. The building is described in Buildings of England: Berkshire, page 101.