Halton House

Halton House is a country house dating to 1881-83, built by W R Rogers of Cubitts for Alfred de Rothschild. It was later used as a Royal Air Force officer's mess from 1919. The house was built on previously agricultural land, approximately 600 metres east of the village church, after Alfred de Rothschild’s father, Baron Lionel de Rothschild, purchased the Halton Estate in 1853.

The house is constructed in the French Renaissance style, using ashlar stone with steep slated roofs, iron crestings, and finials. The chimneys have cornices and pediment caps. Segmental pedimented dormers and oval windows are prominent in the central bays, with a large, open, domed cupola above the garden front.

The main house is two storeys and an attic. It features engaged Doric columns to the ground floor, supporting a triglyph frieze, cornice, and balustrades. The metopes are carved with Rothschild insignia. The first floor has an Ionic order with sections of cornice, and pilaster orders flank the centre. The entrance and garden fronts both have six bays, with the three outer bays in half-octagonal turrets. A central bay features a full-height, pedimented frontispiece, with a porte-cochère to the ground floor of the entrance front. Tall plate glass casements are used throughout, with semicircular arched heads to those on the ground floor. Carved panels are above the windows on the southeast tower. An attached terrace on the garden front has stone steps and a balustrade with urns. A one-storey block is attached to the east end, linked to a lower service wing, also one storey and an attic, in matching style. A one-storey modern dining room extension has been added to the north side. A former winter garden at the west end was demolished in 1937 and replaced with officer’s quarters by Vincent Harris; this attached block is three storeys and square, with eight bays to each front, featuring attic windows with oval heads and cills.

The interior includes a great, central two-storey hall and staircase, surrounded by state rooms all decorated with elaborate gilt plasterwork. An iron stair balustrade and balcony fronts the hall. Marble chimneypieces are in all rooms. A billiard room is lined with polished wood panelling. A "Gold Room" is decorated in a Moorish style with a gilt ceiling, arches, doorcases, and dado. A garden corridor features white stone columns and niches.

Halton House is noted as being one of the first houses built with electric lighting and is an early example of hot air central heating.