Charlton Park House

Charlton Park House is a former large country house, now divided into 18 separate dwellings. It was originally built around 1607 for the Countess of Suffolk, and significantly enlarged between 1772 and 1776 by Matthew Brettingham the younger, although the work was not fully completed until the early 20th century. In 1975, it was converted into apartments by C. Buxton of Period & Country Houses.

The house is constructed of squared and coursed rubble to the projecting wings of the south front, with ashlar to the remaining ranges. It features stone dressings, ashlar strapwork cresting, leaded onion domes to the turrets, and concrete slate roofs. The original design was of a Jacobean-style tower house, quadrangular in plan with corner turrets. Elements from 1607 remain visible on the south front and the south section of the west front. The linking ranges and the large central saloon, built within the original courtyard (dated 1774 on the north range’s parapet), are from the 1772-76 rebuilding. The south front has an ‘E’ shape, with three-storey, single-bay advanced end wings and four-storey corner turrets. Behind them is a three-storey, three-bay range, which incorporates a two-storey central porch with coupled Tuscan Doric columns and an open round-arched entrance leading onto an open round-arched loggia extending between the turrets. Chamfered cross-mullioned windows are fitted with small-pane casements, some with arched central lights, while an oriel window over the porch has octagonal leaded glazing. The porch and loggia feature a metope and strapwork frieze. Moulded string courses are present on all floors, with a pierced diaper balcony to the porch. Gabled strapwork cresting adorns the side wings, central parapet, and turrets. Tall columnar stacks are grouped in sets of four. The east front showcases three-storey canted end bays and a linking 18th-century two-storey, five-bay range with 12-pane sashes and three pedimented dormers. The north front mirrors this with projecting end bays and a similar 18th-century linking range, displaying a dated cartouche below a lion on the parapet.

Internally, the Long Gallery, located above the loggia and currently inaccessible, retains a fine chimneypiece and plaster ceiling from the original 1607 construction. The 1772-76 Saloon features apses to the north and south, galleries on Ionic columns to the east and west, and a glazed oval dome, all decorated in elegant Adam-style stucco. Similar decorative detailing can be seen in the Drawing Room in the north range and in other former reception rooms in the east wing. A simple staircase with a wrought iron balustrade is situated in the south-east corner of the Saloon.