Hardwicke Court

Hardwicke Court is a large country house built between 1817 and 1819 by Sir Robert Smirke for T.J. Lloyd-Baker. The house is constructed of limestone ashlar with brick service wings and features a Welsh slate roof. It has a central staircase plan with a three-storey block flanked by two-storey side wings.

The front of the house has a symmetrical arrangement of windows, with two large windows on either side of a central square single-storey porch that has plain paired pilasters and narrow side sashes. The window openings are plain and unmoulded, featuring tall 15-pane ground floor sashes, 12-pane sashes on the middle storey, and 6-pane sashes on the top floor. There is a plain band at the first floor level and moulded cornices above, with the top floor cornice having a plain blocking course above it. The roof is low pitched and has parapet gables at the ends, with moulded caps on the ashlar chimney stacks.

The projecting two-storey side wings have single-window fenestration, with a large tripartite sash in a segmental-headed opening on the ground floor and a smaller square-headed tripartite sash above. The south end features paired 15-pane sashes in the side wing that breaks forward in the center, with two blocked openings above. The north end has three blocked openings on each floor.

At the back, a service block projects from the front range, with the ground floor in ashlar limestone and segmental arched scattered fenestration. The upper floors are a brick addition with cambered arched sashes, and there is a further single-storey service wing that projects to the southwest.

The interior is designed in a plain Neo-classical style, with a hall lit from the porch through an arched inner glazed screen and an open well staircase aligned with the central hall. Each principal room features Neo-classical marble fireplaces. The house is set in a landscaped park with terracing to the east enclosing a fountain pool and a straight canal to the south, which is aligned with the former house. Hardwicke Court was built as a replacement for the Trye family manor house from the 16th and 17th centuries.