Hydes House With Attached Walls And Gatepiers

Hydes House is a detached house, largely rebuilt in the early 18th century on the site of an earlier building. It is constructed of limestone ashlar and rubble stone, with quoins, and has a tiled hipped mansard roof, featuring stone stacks with moulded cappings. The house is arranged in an L-plan with later rear additions.

The south front has two main storeys and an attic, with a 1:3:1-window arrangement, the central three bays projecting forward. The central entrance features double, half-glazed doors with a pediment supported by engaged Ionic columns and a pulvinated frieze. Flanking the entrance are two 12-pane sashes in moulded architraves, each with a keystone. A plat band runs along the first floor, above which are five sashes in similar architraves with keystones. A modillioned cornice sits above the first floor, topped by a pediment containing an oval light. Two 6-pane sashes are set into flat-headed attic dormers.

The right return, now the main entrance front, has a ledged door with an integral transom light, covered by a 20th-century flat wooden hood supported on brackets. Two recessed chamfered mullioned casements are to the right; the first floor has a blocked window and two further sashes in moulded architraves. There is a modillioned cornice and three 6-pane sashes to the attic dormers. The left return incorporates sashes and a mullioned casement to the basement, with an outshut to the rear now serving as a dining room, originally constructed as a billiard room in the early 20th century. A further rear addition to the right is also from the early 20th century. The central stair projection has a round-arched sash and a steep hipped roof with a modillioned cornice. The rear two-storey integral wing to the left has a ledged door in a beaded segmental-headed architrave and a 2-light mullioned casement to the rear. A lean-to extension with a slate roof is also present.

The interior of the house features main reception rooms on the south side, characterized by 6-panelled doors in moulded architraves, bolection-moulded panelling, egg and dart moulded cornices, and window shutters. The south-east room has a white marble fireplace, while the south-west room features a bolection-moulded fireplace. The rear entrance hall contains some reset 17th-century wainscot panelling, also incorporated into kitchen doors and cupboards.

A rubble stone wall, between 2 and 4 metres high with pitched coping, runs from the east side of the house to the entrance gate piers. The gate piers are chamfered and rusticated, standing on moulded plinths and topped with ball finials. A 19th-century cast-iron gate completes the entrance feature. The house was restored in the early 20th century by Bertram Phillips and was given to the National Trust in 1943. It formerly served as the rectory and was the home of the Hyde family; Edward Hyde, who later became the first Earl of Clarendon, was born here in 1609.