Bystock Court

Bystock Court is a substantial early 20th-century country house, built in 1907 to designs by Wimperis and Best, with a northern service wing that incorporates earlier fabric and additions from 1914. The house is constructed of red brick with Portland stone dressings, and has hipped slate roofs with brick stacks that are stepped at the head. The windows are timber horned sashes with broad ovolo-moulded glazing bars, set flush with the brickwork; French windows are fitted to the ground floor.

An account published in the architectural press in 1908 records that the building's fittings were supplied by leading craftsmen and manufacturers of the period. R Crittall & Co provided the leaded lights, Thomas Elsley made the rainwater heads, George P Bankart executed the principal plaster ceilings, George Jackson & Sons supplied special woodwork and chimney-pieces (along with Longden & Co), F & C Osler furnished chandeliers and electric light fittings, and J. Gibbons manufactured door furniture to the architect's designs. The majority of these fittings survive in situ, along with a large proportion of the original joinery and panelled doors.

Plan and Layout

The main part of the house, to the south, is rectangular on plan and rises two storeys, with projecting bays – square to the east and curved to the west. The long north wing is slightly narrower and rises to the same height as the principal building, but incorporates a mezzanine level expressed by an intermediate row of windows.

Exterior

The main 1907 building is characterised by Baroque features. A projecting stone dentil eaves cornice runs beneath a balustrade above, and the windows have stone keystones and sills with brick aprons. Wide, rusticated brick piers define the bays, clasping each corner and marking the northern ends of the building where it meets the wing.

The eastern entrance elevation has two central bays, with a square bay projecting to either side and a further narrow bay at the northern end containing two elongated windows above a doorway. The main entrance is in the right-hand projecting bay. The stone doorcase takes the form of an aedicule with two engaged Ionic columns (with volutes projecting in the variation sometimes known as the Scamozzi order) supporting a broken pediment. Within this, a cartouche with laurel swags contains Hunter's arms – a vertical spear with pendant stringed buglehorn between two roses; the crest above is a stag's head between two roses. The door opening is framed by a semi-circular arch with a scrolled keystone. The oak door in its broad frame is Jacobethan in style, with nailhead decoration; the frame has eared corners and the door features a Renaissance arch. The fanlight is inspired by complex Jacobean windows, such as those in the celebrated façade of Sir Paul Pindar's house (now in the Victoria and Albert Museum), with balusters in silhouette and projecting drops separating canted leaded panes of textured glass, incorporating a central lantern for electric light. The other openings on the ground floor are also full-length French windows with multi-pane surrounds.

The south front has a central full-height curved bay containing a French window with a squared fanlight; a similar door opens to a wrought-iron balcony immediately above. Each opening is flanked by a pair of windows, and there is a single bay to either side of the projection.

The west front has two curved bays – one central, the other to the right – which take the same form as the bow to the south. To either side of the central curved bay is a wide, full-length glazed opening, as on the east front, with a window above. To the left is a narrower bay containing a glazed door with a window above.

The northern wing consists of four main sections of different dates. The windows in the wing have flat brick arches, and the sections have been unified by a parapet with lozenge detail, originally belonging to the southern section but extended in 1914; the top of the parapet is level with the eaves of the main Wimperis and Best building. Immediately to the north of the main building is a five-bay block, partially rebuilt and refenestrated after a fire. Further north is a single-bay block, slightly projecting, which dates from before the fire. North again is a three-bay block built in 1907. These two portions of the building are joined on the eastern elevation by a three-centred arch at ground-floor level (previously leading to an enclosed yard), with an arch added in 1914 at parapet level. At the northern end of the building is the four-bay block of 1914, projecting slightly in the eastern elevation. The northern end has received a number of more recent alterations and additions to both east and west elevations.

Interior

The 1908 published account of the newly-built Bystock indicates the names of the rooms, whilst a plan of 1907 gives further information about their use, allowing them to be referred to by their original designations.

The main doorway opens to the Vestibule, which has a chequered marble floor. From here, doors open in three directions. To the north is a Lavatory with two WC cubicles; the marble floor continues into this area, which holds the only surviving sanitary ware in the form of a central marble-topped double washbasin and other fittings (the WCs have been replaced). To the west is the former Flower Room, now converted for office use. To the south is the oak-panelled Hall.

The Hall is baronial in overall conception but realised in a Baroque style. The space consists of a top-lit, galleried central square, with passages to east and west containing doorways to adjoining rooms, and a staircase to the east. The central area has raised and fielded panels separated by pilasters standing on tall plinths which rise with pronounced entasis to capitals with egg and dart moulding. These become square columns to form the open screens that demarcate the passages. Square columns rise on the north and west sides at gallery level, with Scamozzi Ionic capitals of mahogany with husk drops. The two blank sides of the gallery are punctuated by pilasters corresponding to the columns.

Set back between two corner pilasters is the panelled dog-leg staircase, framed by the flanking bays. In each bay is an oriel window with a bronze frame holding bevelled glass panes, lending a Jacobean flavour to the design; the window on the right lights the stair. The stair has a closed string with turned balusters and a chamfered newel with elaborate stops. The stair opening is marked by plinths with consoles at ground-floor level, and by torchères raised on consoles at gallery level. The gallery is edged with turned balusters, now topped by a Perspex screen between the columns. Above the frieze is a dentil cornice. The round lantern, with colourless textured glass set in a curvilinear design, is encircled by elaborate acanthus plasterwork. From the centre hangs a large brass chandelier, part of the original fittings. The hall fireplace in the southern wall of the ground floor has a complex surround, with an eared bolection inner moulding of coloured marble and an oak outer moulding carved with acanthus leaves; a blank central panel supports a high shelf, and green-glazed tiles line the interior and hearth.

The principal ground-floor rooms retain their original form and much of their decoration and fittings. The French windows have full-length folding shutters, there are plaster cornices and wall decoration, and a variety of fireplaces in an early 18th-century style, consisting of an eared architrave enclosing an inner surround of marble, with an enriched frieze and a cornice forming a shelf.

The former Billiard Room, entered from the hall to the east, is the most altered and has lost its fireplace, but retains its cornice, window shutters and parquet floor.

Opening from the south-west corner of the Hall is the Drawing Room. Here, the fireplace has a foliate design to the frieze, which is broken by a panel with floral carving, whilst the walls and ceiling have plasterwork decoration.

At the west end of the hall is the Morning Room, with its curved bay window at the centre of the garden front. The chimneypiece here incorporates coloured marble and has an enriched frieze.

The Dining Room, accessed from the north-west corner of the hall, has a particularly elaborate chimneypiece with a bolection-moulded surround enriched with acanthus and a shelf supported on scrolls. There is a modillion cornice, and the ceiling has a plasterwork moulding richly decorated with fruit. An opening has been cut in the north wall, communicating with what is now the kitchen, formerly the Library (also referred to as Mr Hunter's Business Room).

The Music Room occupies the southern part of the ground floor, with windows on three sides. The eastern section of the room formerly housed an organ and is now without noteworthy features. The Music Room is punctuated by fluted Scamozzi Ionic pilasters which define the corners of the room and of the recessed door and window openings; above is a pulvinated frieze enriched with bay-leaves and a cornice with egg and dart moulding. Plaster mouldings frame the wall spaces, and the ceiling is decorated with a delicate plaster moulding of acanthus and fruit. Each doorcase is shouldered, with an overdoor panel of crossed palm fronds and a cornice. The chimneypiece has a pulvinated frieze of wreathed laurel.

On the first floor, doorcases leading from the gallery have eared frames with cornices above pulvinated friezes. The doorway leading to the north wing is surmounted by a multi-paned opening in an eared frame with husk drops. In the 1907 part of the building, the first-floor rooms are much less lavishly decorated than those on the ground floor, but the scheme largely remains, with each original room retaining a fireplace and cornice, despite some later partitioning and other alterations.

The southern rooms, connected by two top-lit passages, were originally occupied by Mr and Mrs Hunter; the majority of the noteworthy features are in this area. What was Mrs Hunter's Bedroom, at the centre of the east front, has a chimneypiece with a shelf resting on a row of scrolled brackets – the same model appears in the principal guest bedroom to the north-west. In the south-east corner is a room planned as a Study, with what were formerly Mr Hunter's Dressing Room and a bathroom further west.

A large room, formerly Mrs Hunter's Boudoir, occupies the south-west corner. The chimneypiece has an overmantel in the Edwardian manner, there is a decorative ceiling, glass-fronted cabinets beneath the windows, and a broken-pedimented overdoor incorporating what appears to be an 18th-century cameo panel. On the west front, one wall of what was Mrs Hunter's Dressing Room is fitted with angled mirrors set to either side of the fireplace; one of the flanking cupboards has been removed as a result of the partitioning of the room.

The north wing of the house has received far more alteration than the southern section. On the ground floor, service rooms have been substantially modernised and retain few traces of their original use. The former Servants' Hall retains only a large cupboard. What was the Housekeeper's Room has a moulded timber chimneypiece and a cupboard, whilst in the original Kitchen at the north end of the house, an alcove indicates the former position of the range. The cellars remain in much their original form and retain brick wine bins.

The mezzanine floor provided bedrooms for servants. These low-ceilinged rooms are extremely plain and do not retain original features. The first floor of this part of the house originally accommodated guests and children, with bedrooms towards the south and nurseries to the north, with a long schoolroom occupying the north-east corner. Several of these rooms have been subdivided, and few original features remain.

Subsidiary Features

Against the 1907 part of the house to south and west is a wide brick terrace, approached by steps and edged by a stone balustrade with stone urns marking the openings and obelisks marking each corner.

At the southern entrance to the site stand a pair of granite gate piers with quadrant walls, thought to have been associated with the earlier house.