The Greathouse

The Greathouse is a late 17th-century house, significantly extended in the early 20th century, originally built of rubble stone with stone slate roofs and tall ashlar stacks. It is situated on the west side of Swindon Road in Kington Langley and has a courtyard plan.

The west front is particularly striking, presenting a formal nine-window facade with flush quoins, two dripcourses, a parapet, and a hipped roof featuring a ridge stack to the left. The windows are stone cross windows with ovolo-moulded frames and leaded lights. The central door has a bolection-moulded surround topped with a shell hood supported by scroll brackets, though the door itself is a copy from around 1910 of the original.

The south side features two ridge stacks, a two-window range to the left of the porch, a single-window range to the right, and a long extension added around 1910, which incorporates two large, 1:2:2:2:1-light canted bays. A c.1910 east gable is also present. The ashlar porch has a gabled roof with steep stone slates, moulded coping, and a corniced sundial in the gable. The sides of the porch feature moulded courses over the openings with turned balusters. The entry has a moulded inner doorcase, a 2-light overlight, and a lattice-patterned plank door.

The east front, dating from 1907-10, displays a formal three-gabled design, with the wings projecting further than the centre. It includes a central inscription recording work carried out for C. Garnett Esq. and features mullion and mullion-and-transom windows, with a doorcase and segmental-pedimented cross window above in a well-detailed, late 17th-century style. A simpler service wing gable projects to the right of the main front. The north side presents a seven-window range similar to the west front, with cross windows, and an eighth bay was added around 1910. A service wing runs parallel to the left end.

Internally, a fine room with fielded panelling, a dentilled cornice, a Baroque doorcase, and a fireplace, designed in an early 18th-century style, is located on the south side, though it has been subdivided into an entrance hall. The west front entrance hall contains panelling, a plaster frieze, decorative plasterwork on the beams and ceiling, and a moulded stone square-headed fireplace, all in a late 17th-century style, though the plasterwork itself is likely early 20th century. A staircase also dates from the early 20th century. The south-west room upstairs features a bolection-moulded corner fireplace with a shelf.

Historically, the house is said to have been owned by the Coleman family from around 1700, who were lords of the manor. They later moved to the Manor House opposite when The Greathouse became a farmhouse, before being restored by Charles Garnett between 1907 and 1910. It is now a Leonard Cheshire Foundation Home.