Lainston House

Lainston House is a middle-sized country house largely of the late 17th century, with alterations from the 19th and 20th centuries. It is constructed of brick with stone dressings and has an old plain tile roof with lead ridges. The house is originally H-shaped with late 18th-century loggias on either side of the front courtyard, attached to the corners. A 20th-century single-storey porch fills the centre of the front elevation and a wing extends from one end, both built in a matching style. The front elevation is two storeys and an attic, with seven bays, the two end bays projecting forward. The central porch features 20th-century glazed double doors within a rusticated architrave, flanked by thin sash windows. Above the doors is a modillioned cornice with a pediment, and the sashes are set back slightly within lugged stone architraves. The first floor has three 18th-century 12-pane sashes in lugged architraves, with a raised panel bearing a timber pediment above the central bay. The wings have four 12-pane sashes with lugged stone architraves, with a rubbed brick string course. A modillioned cornice tops the tall hipped roof, with hipped dormers containing two-light casements on the front of the wings and either side of the centre. Large central ridge stacks feature blind arches on each side, with symmetrical stacks just above the eaves where the roofs meet. The left-hand end has an L-shaped 20th-century wing with sashes in raised rubbed brick architraves, and similar eaves to the hipped roofs. The front loggias consist of twelve bays of arcades, with end bays slightly projecting forward, featuring rubbed brick arches, a string at impost level, a string above the arches, and a parapet at the top. The central hall is Edwardian in style, with panelling and a large stone fireplace. The house also contains Delft tiles and Arts & Crafts fireplaces. A library is in a Baroque style with Gibbonesque carvings. A late 17th-century staircase was rebuilt in the early 20th century, and 18th-century Corinthian columns in timber are present in the left wing. Behind the dining room is late 17th-century panelling with a bolection green marble fireplace. Radiators of linked fluted columns are throughout the building.