Wykham Park (Tudor Hall School), Immediately To The South Of C17 Wykham Park Hall

Wykham Park is a country house built in 1740 for Sir James Dashwood (1715–70), located immediately to the south of the earlier 17th-century Wykham Park Hall. The architect is not known. The house underwent extensive additions and alterations between 1865 and the early 20th century. It is constructed of ironstone ashlar with a slate roof and follows a U-plan facing south.

The original 1740 house was a modest dwelling of approximately six bedrooms. The façade is overall two-storey with a balustraded parapet concealing low roofs. The east range comprises ten bays; the left-hand five bays have wooden sash windows, while the remainder have stone mullion and transom windows. The fourth first-floor window from the right end is an oriel, and the right-handmost window rises between the first and second storeys. The left-hand three bays have pilasters marking the original 1740 fabric. Set centrally against these is a single-storey porch in early 18th-century style, added in 1865 or later.

The south range formed the original entrance front, identified by pilasters marking the 1740 fabric. After 1865 this was turned into the garden front. It features four canted bay windows: two full-height bays probably of 1740 are set between single-storey bays, with the right-hand single-storey bay probably marking the position of the original entrance. At the left-hand end of the range is a full-height ironstone bow, the end wall of a music room added around 1890.

The west range contains an ironstone ashlar picture gallery added after 1903, lit by broad full-height bay windows. The inner courtyard is a complex arrangement of service ranges, many dating after 1865 and heavily remodelled to accommodate the school. A substantial two-storey brick kitchen block of late 20th-century date stands on the north side of the courtyard.

The drawing room at the south-east corner retains what are probably the original 1740 doors and door cases with scrolled overdoors and a modillioned cornice. The ground floor of the original house was largely refitted between 1865 and the early 20th century. Rooms with notable Victorian and Edwardian finishes include the Main Hall, the Library (which is panelled), the Staff Room, and the Ballroom, together with an imposing staircase. Most principal ground-floor rooms and some bedrooms retain Victorian and Edwardian fireplaces, doors and cornices.

The right-hand half of the east range is fronted by a walled garden of post-1865 date in 17th-century style, with piers topped by ball finials, reflecting the walled court to its left that fronts the separately-listed Wykham Park Hall.

Wykham stands just beyond the south-west fringe of Banbury. In the Middle Ages, Wykham was apparently a manor of some significance; the chief house received a licence to crenellate in 1330. In 1601 the manor passed to Thomas Chamberlayne, a judge, in whose time a new house (the present Wykham Park Hall) was built. When Sir James Dashwood built the present house in 1740, the earlier hall was retained and converted into stables.

In 1801 Dashwood's son sold the property, and it changed hands several times before being purchased in 1865 by William Mewburn (?1817–1900), a successful Methodist businessman. Under Mewburn, the house was considerably extended, the main entrance was moved from the south front to the east, and the interior was refurbished. The surrounding gardens and parks were also much improved. In 1903 Mewburn's son sold the property to his brother-in-law Robert Perks, M.P., who added a new wing, picture gallery and library. In 1945 Wykham was bought by the proprietors of Tudor Hall School, an independent girls' school established in 1850, which remained in occupation as of 2005.