Lyncombe House

Lyncombe House is a large detached house on Lyncombe Vale Road, now in use as the Paragon school. Built in 1742 with a later 18th-century porch and a mid-20th-century extension, it is constructed in limestone ashlar with some rubble and a slate roof.

The building presents a tall, compact, symmetrical main range with a central porch and staircase, a lower wing to the right, and a large flat-roofed full-width addition to the rear. The main front rises three storeys above a basement, developing to four storeys at the rear.

The exterior displays glazing bar sashes in moulded stone architraves throughout, with twelve-pane lights and thick bars to the top floor. The central sash is concealed behind a narrow projecting porch with a two-light casement to the front and twelve-pane sashes to the returns. The first floor to the left contains a large tripartite casement with five-pane sidelights and paired ten-pane centre lights, taken down to floor level with an iron balconette. To the right are two deep fifteen-pane sashes with balconettes, and smaller twelve-pane lights to three faces of the porch. The ground floor features a large twelve-pane sash and a pair of panelled doors with an elliptical head and radial fanlight in the porch. The basement has two twelve-pane lights and a smaller light to the left; the right half includes a glazed laylight and is partly paved. A small flat-roofed extension adjoins to the left.

Across the main front runs a stone balustrade, returned at the ends and stopped to the porch. A platband rises above the ground floor windows, with a second band at what may have been the former sill level to the first floor. The elevation is crowned with a modillion cornice, blocking course, and parapet, with cropped end stacks. The porch carries bands at each level and a cornice with blocking course and parapet, all positioned at lower levels than the main range.

The wing to the right (east) end comprises two storeys with a basement and features a two-light casement to the ground floor with a solid balustrade to the area. The return front has a canted bay with plain sashes at three floors, with further plain sashes at two upper levels to the right. The north front of this block, set back beyond the mid-20th-century addition, displays two large twelve-pane sash dormers above small sixteen-pane sashes. A platband continues from the principal range, topped by a modillion cornice with blocking course and parapet to the hipped roof. The left-hand return is plain rubble. The north front also rises in five bays, with twelve-pane sashes in moulded architraves to the second and first floors. At terrace level are French doors, with large arched openings to the lower ground level addition.

The interior, inspected in 1981, contains much fielded and other panelling, very fine fireplaces, an arcaded basement, and an Early Victorian central staircase.

Historically, the house was formerly known as Lyncombe Spaw House and may have been built in connection with the discovery of mineral springs in the area. John Wood the Elder designed a circular spa building here in 1737 for the dispensing of these waters. By 1767 the house was being used as a hospital. Later in the 18th century it served as a pleasure ground, and a fictitious connection with James II became associated with the property during this period.