Sydenham House

Sydenham House is a manor house built circa 1600-1612 for Sir Thomas Wise, incorporating parts of an earlier house. Substantial alterations were undertaken in 1656 for Edward Wise, with some refurbishing between 1698-1709 for the Tremayne family. Late 20th-century repairs and renovations included work in 1937 by Philip Tilden. The house is built of stone rubble with scantle slate roofs, hipped at the south end and gabled elsewhere with sprocketted eaves. It has five stone stacks: two lateral stacks at the rear (west) side, one serving the kitchen at the north, and two serving the front projecting wings. Granite dressings are used throughout.

Plan and Exterior Form

The house presents a symmetrical east-facing E-plan with separately roofed additional blocks on the north side. The east front features a two-storey and attic porch with front projecting north and south wings, each having subordinate wings projecting into the front courtyard. The west side of the main range has a second two-storey and attic porch opposed to that on the east front, and a wing gabled to the west. This western wing is divided between the main stair and closets leading off the main hall and long gallery, the division marked by an external buttress.

The two additional blocks on the north of the E-plan consist of a kitchen wing gabled to the north, and a parlour wing gabled to the north and further gabled to the west in a three-tier bay. The parlour wing has a projecting stair turret on the north side.

Building History

The irregular fenestration of the south side of the south wing suggests this may have been the core of the pre-17th-century house, although Pevsner suggested that the west (garden) front showed evidence of pre-Reformation masonry. Presumably the basic E-plan and columnar granite mullioned windows date from the 1600-1612 build which Risdon commented on as being so high that the "very foundation is ready to reel under the burden".

The mid-17th-century alterations by Edward Wise were substantial. Papers dated 1654 include estimates for "ye building of my house at Sydenham" and refer to cellars, foundations and timber windows. It has been suggested that Edward Wise rebuilt or completed the south end of the main range, but this may have been ruinous in 1831 and the evidence for rebuilding may date as late as the 1930s work by Philip Tilden. Edward Wise altered the fine chimney piece to the hall, made some alterations to the stair hall and may have been responsible for the Ipswich windows in the north and south wings and for some of the internal woodwork. The 1698-1709 work for the Tremayne family appears to be largely internal.

In the circa 1840s the three bays of the south end of the west front were refenestrated with sash windows. The 1930s work by Philip Tilden appears to have been substantial and involved replacing one bay of the sash windows with stone mullioned cross windows and the addition of a first floor oriel window on the south side of the south wing. It would appear that the east wall of the south wing was also rebuilt in the 1930s, and that an early 18th-century doorway to the west porch was replaced with a 15th-century granite doorway introduced from elsewhere.

East Front

The building is of two storeys and attic. The symmetrical E-plan east front has deep north and south front projecting wings with subsidiary opposed wings projecting into the forecourt. The three-bay main range, north and south wings are also three-bay. The two-storey porch and four wings have plastered gables.

Ground floor and first floor windows are mostly regular four-light early 17th-century granite mullioned windows with high transoms with hoodmoulds and 20th-century leaded panes. The first floor windows of the east ends of the north and south wings have striking timber windows dating from 1654 (Oswald) similar to those at Sparrows House, Ipswich. They are adaptations of a four-light ovolo-moulded cross window design with a timber semi-circular head in the upper middle two lights with spoke-leading in the semi-circle. The gable windows above them are Venetian with a central arched light set in a rectangular architrave flanked by two lower lights.

The two-storey early 17th-century central projecting gabled porch is fronted with ashlar masonry with a segmental arched moulded early 17th-century doorway with carved spandrels flanked by Roman Doric columns on tall rectangular plinths with a flush triglyph frieze below a projecting moulded cornice. Above the cornice, set in a rectangular recess with a moulded barley sugar architrave, is the armorial bearings of the Wise family in plaster with a plaster achievement and sculptural plaster mantling. Some ancient colour survives. Above the recess is a four-light granite mullioned cross window; the gable window is a two-light timber casement with leaded panes.

The north wing has two two-light mullioned stair windows immediately to the west of the subsidiary wing. Both subsidiary wings have timber rectangular gable windows with a diamond-shaped light and diagonal leaded panes.

Garden (West) Front

The garden front is asymmetrical with a central three-stage gabled porch, slate-hung in the gable. To the left of the porch is a two-bay gabled wing with sprocketted eaves, also slate-hung in the gable that oversails the bay corners. The two southernmost bays of the garden front have twelve-pane sashes; all other ground and first floor windows are one-, two- and four-light granite mullioned windows throughout. Those to the kitchen wing are six-light cross windows with king mullions.

A north entrance leads into a passage between the kitchen and the parlour. A further probably 16th-century arched granite doorway leads into the parlour stair turret and is half-blocked by a 20th-century chimney.

South Wing

The south side of the south wing has scattered fenestration of two- and four-light granite mullioned windows with high transoms, considerable evidence of rebuilding and blocked openings. The 1937 ground floor oriel on the left has a conical slate roof and transomed mullioned lights.

Interior: Hall and Related Rooms

The opposed east and west entrances lead directly into the south end of the hall; the screen no longer exists. The hall has a lateral fireplace with a chimney piece with Roman Ionic columns and an entablature. This probably dates from the 1600-1612 build and was crowned in 1656 by a dated segmental broken pediment with the arms of Edward Wise and his wife with a crest and elaborate mantling. The figures of Adam and Eve lie on the pediment. The pediment has been repainted in the 20th century.

Leading off the hall into half of the wing that also contains the main stair is a small room heated from the main hall stack with a stone fireplace. The room was fitted out with a bedstead in an inventory of 1649 when it was described as the "Orrell".

The panelled wainscot to the hall is divided by fluted pilasters and has a strapwork frieze above. It may date from the early 17th-century work of Sir Thomas Wise, or may have been introduced by Edward Wise. Full-height panelling divided by fluted pilasters and crowned by a cornice broken forward over the pilasters fills the north and south walls of the hall and dates from circa 1700, with contemporary panelled doors.

Main Stair

The main stair is early 17th century with two dog-leg flights broken by two landings. The elaborately carved pierced balusters are angled to the flights and vertical to the landings and repeated on the wall side. A male and female term applied to two of the newels may not be original to the stair but are probably contemporary in date. The flat moulded handrail is interrupted by large square section newels crowned by flat-topped volute finials.

The stair hall ceiling is divided into two. The plaster ceiling to the west is Adam style and is said to have replaced a painted ceiling. To the east the decorated plaster ceiling is circa 1660 (Devon Period Three, French) and presumably for Edward Wise with pomegranates enriching a central oval linked to a similar pomegranate border. A plaster wall frieze consists of shields linked by festoons, all in high relief. Three contemporary doors leading off the upper landing have strapwork panelling and are crowned with pediments.

Parlour and Adjacent Rooms

The parlour panelling is particularly fine. Corinthian pilasters divide the wainscot which has a moulded cornice above a frieze of incised arabesques filled with what is probably gesso, picking out the pattern in white. A second frieze below consists of similar patterns framed by round-headed arches. The overmantel is a more elaborate version of this double frieze.

The rooms above the parlour and kitchen have circa early 17th-century panelling with some fine cockshead hinges to the doors.

Long Gallery

The heated long gallery above the hall has closets opening off on the west side and a panelled wainscot divided by fluted pilasters. A decorated plaster ceiling was probably once fixed to the three chamfered cross beams. In circa 1700 the gallery was partitioned off at the south end forming two additional rooms with panelling of circa 1700 which has been stripped of paint. The southernmost room has a contemporary fireplace; the adjoining room preserves its early 17th-century fireplace, the original long gallery having been heated at two points.

Other Rooms

The two ground floor rooms to the south of the hall have circa 1700 panelling with some adaptations by Philip Tilden in the 1930s. The north and south wings have circa early 17th-century dog-leg staircases with turned balusters. Some of the first floor rooms to the wings have bolection-moulded panelling, some have early 17th-century panelling.

The kitchen has a massive stone double fireplace with chamfered segmental arches.

Historical Context

Sir Thomas Wise was created Knight of the Bath at the coronation of James I and sheriff of Devon in 1612. His grandson, Edward Wise came to live at Sydenham in 1654 and in 1694 the estate passed by marriage to the Tremayne family and remained in Tremayne hands until the 1930s.

In a letter from Anna Bray to Robert Southey the condition of "one wing" of the house in 1831 was described as "in a very ruinous condition". Photographs of circa 1900 in the possession of the present owner show the screens passage marked by a tripartite colonnade screen of Greek Doric columns, probably contemporary with the 1700 panelling in the hall.

The house is a remarkable survival of an ambitious early 17th-century building with little visible alteration after about 1700.