Hampden House

Hampden House is a mansion of major historical and architectural importance, representing an evolution from the late 16th century through the 18th century Gothick revival movement.

The core of the house comprises a late 16th-century hall range with an east cross wing and a 17th-century westward extension. Notably, the hall incorporates a 14th-century arched doorway with a 15th to early 16th-century porch tower. The house underwent substantial remodelling between 1740 and 1746 in the Gothick style, including the addition of a west porch, extensions to the east wing, and new kitchen ranges to the north. Interior decoration from the 1740s and 1750s survives, alongside early 20th-century alterations.

The house was the seat of the Hampden family until 1754, when it passed to their descendants the Trevyons and the Hobarts, later Earls of Buckinghamshire. The Gothick remodelling was executed for the last John Hampden.

The 16th and 17th-century sections are constructed of red brick with blue diaper-patterning, while the porch tower is flint and stone, with the remainder in brick. The house was completely rendered in the mid-18th century but is now largely stripped of render except for the north and east fronts, the south-east end, the porch tower, and the west porch. The old tile roofs are hidden by 18th-century rendered battlements topped with moulded stone coping and a rendered Gothick frieze below. Brick chimneys, some rendered, feature diagonal shafts flanking rows of square shafts.

The east front presents a three-storey central section of five bays flanked by two-storey bays with bowed projections, with two further bays at each end, also of two storeys. Stone quoins, plinth and band courses articulate the facades. The central section has a parapet with stone coping, ball finials, and a pair of heraldic griffins. Semi-circular arched windows with stone keyblocks and springers occupy the ground and upper floors; the ground floor has early 20th-century wooden cross casements, the first floor has 19th-century sashes, and the second floor has 18th-century sashes. The two right bays are altered to stone cross windows, and blind attic window panels occupy the parapets. A central 20th-century double doors sit beneath an 18th-century stone Doric porch, with 20th-century doors serving each bowed projection.

Flanking curved brick walls feature five blind arches of bonded flint, with additional arches at the returns; one open arch appears in the south wall. A Gothick arcade along the west side of the wing contains seven bays of arched casements with leaded cross windows above and a semi-decagonal arched doorway at the south end.

The slightly asymmetrical south front displays seven bays of cross windows, with the left bays somewhat irregular, and paired leaded attic casements. Similar windows appear in the projecting corner bays. An off-centre porch features stone battlements with cross-slits and machicolations, an altered first-floor window, and a 15th to 16th-century moulded four-centred arch with 20th-century doors. Two-light traceried windows flank the porch, heavily restored, alongside other altered openings.

The west end was remodelled as a Gothick porch in 1742, with a recessed central bay beneath a battlemented gable over a tall pointed arch. The three-bay Gothick fenestration incorporates ogee and two-centred arches, a central moulded shallow arch, and an arched inner doorway with triple shafts and shuttered half-glazed doors.

The kitchen ranges retain a fine wooden Gothick doorcase, reset in a 20th-century porch, and a small Gothick porch with an arched doorway and heraldic shields on the centre of the north front.

Internally, the hall contains a gallery with a late 17th-century balustrade and a roof from a 15th-century barn at Great Kimble, installed circa 1917. A 17th-century staircase stands in the west wing, with some 16th to 17th-century stone fireplaces. The main staircase is probably mid-18th-century in date but possesses an unusual 17th-century character, featuring an arcaded balustrade and strapwork ceiling.

The east wing contains a series of mid-18th-century ground-floor state rooms with fine plaster ceilings and marbled stone and wooden fireplaces, the central room featuring a marble fireplace carved with rustic scenes. A south room originally extended to two storeys and retains a coved ceiling. A small adjacent dining room to the north has semi-circular alcoves and plaster drops of fruit and flowers. A bed alcove with Ionic pilasters occupies a room to the north of the centre, with an early 20th-century screen of columns separating the north rooms. Another bed alcove appears in a first-floor room.

The house is documented in the Earl of Buckinghamshire's collection held at the Buckinghamshire Records Office.