Bonython Manor House

Bonython Manor House is a country house built circa 1790, probably incorporating walls of an earlier house in its rear wing and possibly on old foundations at the front. It was built for John Trevenen, possibly by William Wood, a pupil of Thomas Edwards. The house is constructed of granite ashlar to the front, with rendered and painted walls elsewhere. It has hipped tiled roofs with parapet to the front and granite ashlar chimneys—one stack over each side wall and two lateral stacks over the right-hand wall of the rear wing.

The building follows an overall L-shaped plan, with a double-depth house to the front and a service wing to the rear of the right-hand side. The main house contains two equal reception rooms flanking a central entrance hall, which leads to a large central rear stair hall with secondary reception rooms to left and right. A through passage separates the main house from the three-storey service wing, which is two rooms deep and one room wide, with a service stair near the angle. The service wing possibly incorporates the surviving upper end—hall and inner room—of a circa late medieval house with two lateral hearths, remodelled and heightened in the late 18th century. A circa 1805 picture shows a narrower low thatched extension at the rear end of the wing, which has since been removed. The house is two storeys over basement.

The symmetrical south-west front displays a 2:1:2 bay composition with a central entrance bay slightly broken forward and surmounted by a triangular pediment. The basement forms a plinth with dressed granite lintels over windows. Shallow arches with projecting keystones span the bays left and right. A parapet over a moulded cornice features plain coping and ball finials over the corners. The central bay contains a wide doorway spanned by an elliptical arch with rusticated jambstones and voussoirs, flanked by original patterned glazed sidelights and fitted with original double panelled doors topped by an original spoked and elliptically glazed fanlight. Above sits a Venetian window with a fanlight glazed lunette. The remaining windows are original 12-pane hornless sashes with much crown glass, except for later copies to the basement. A flight of converging granite steps bridges the basement courtyard to the front doorway, flanked by wrought iron balustrades adjoining stanchions linked by chains and surmounting a granite-coped basement courtyard retaining wall. The rear elevation features 18th-century sashes with glazing bars, a Venetian window to the main stair, and a round-headed window to the service stair.

The interior retains most of its 18th-century carpentry, joinery details, and plasterwork, much of fine quality. The front reception rooms and entrance hall are distinguished by highly enriched complex moulded cornices. The right-hand room features panelled walls and an elliptical arched niche. Between the entrance hall and stair hall stands a distyle in antis elliptical arched doorway with fluted columns and acanthus capitals. The geometric cantilevered open-well open-string stick baluster stair features a mahogany handrail wreathed over the curtail bottom step; treads are embellished with cornices, shaped bracket ends and guttae. The ceiling over the stair has modillions to the cornice. Principal chambers, including the first floor chamber in the service wing, retain moulded cornices and chair rails to most rooms. Two of the chambers retain original chimney-pieces; other fireplaces are later replacements, including a fine circa mid-18th century chimney-piece inserted to the basement and a circa 1840s chimney-piece with ornate iron grate in the left-hand reception room. Original doors with door furniture and window shutters with inner bead moulding survive throughout. A fanlight in an internal partition separates the inner vestibule from the room behind the right-hand room. The left-hand basement contains a wine cellar with original tiered niches, adjoined to the right by a pantry with a dowelled ventilator over the partition. A rear ground floor service room displays a large lateral hearth with a bread oven.

The Bonython family is first recorded in 1277 and can trace continuous descent from 1370. The house was reconstructed circa 1600 by Reskmer Bonython and sold by Richard Bonython in 1720. Captain Joseph Lyle purchased it in 1837. Two descendants of Lyle—sisters—married two brothers of the well-known Wyatt architectural family, which included James Wyatt PRA and Sir Jeffrey Wyattville. The house is still held by a descendant of the same family, with the name later reverting to Lyle under a name and arms clause condition made in a will dated 1837.