Birch Grove House

Birch Grove House is a large house constructed in 1926 in the Queen Anne style for Maurice and Helen Macmillan, the parents of Harold Macmillan, who later became Prime Minister and Lord Stockton. It served as the Macmillan family home for approximately 60 years, including during Harold Macmillan’s time as Prime Minister. The house is included on the list primarily due to its historical significance, as it was the family residence of a former Prime Minister and hosted numerous distinguished visitors, including General de Gaulle and John F. Kennedy.

The house was built by John Cash of brown brick with orange brick dressings and ashlar quoins and cornice. It has a Mansard slate roof with two panelled brick chimneystacks. The two-storey, attic structure features nine windows on its principal south-east facing front, with projecting end bays on either side. A tall French-style Mansard roof incorporates tripartite pedimented dormers over the wings. The central section features a twelve-pane sash window with a pediment above, and two tripartite windows with curved pediments. A wide moulded stone eaves cornice and end quoins are present. Windows are twelve-pane sashes with moulded architraves, orange brick surrounds, keystones to the ground floor windows, and elaborate brick aprons throughout.

The central doorway is framed by a stone doorcase with a curved pediment, elaborate console brackets, a rectangular fanlight with a circular motif, and a double-glazed door. The north-west facing entrance front has six windows, and two projecting, three-storey towers, flanked by console brackets above stone coping. These towers have a single window each in the attic storey and are adorned with blank round-headed niches. Ground floor windows have cambered heads. A stone loggia with six Tuscan columns links the towers at ground floor level.

Internally, the house exhibits elaborate early 18th-century style modillion cornices and a staircase with turned balusters and a mahogany handrail. Several original early 18th-century doorcases and chimney-pieces were incorporated, salvaged from Devonshire House in Piccadilly, which was demolished in the 1920s. The Dining Room contains a fine 18th-century marble fireplace with engaged Tuscan columns, a raised panel featuring an urn and swags, and a cast iron fire grate.