Claydon House

Claydon House is a Grade I listed mansion comprising a late 18th-century western wing and mid-18th-century remainder. The western wing, containing state rooms, was built between the late 1760s and early 1770s for Ralph, second Earl Verney. Luke Lightfoot was in charge of works until 1769, with intervention from Sir Thomas Robinson between 1768 and 1771. The remainder of the house to the rear is a mid-18th-century remodelling of an older building, with the south front altered in the 1860s.

The classical western wing is constructed of ashlar with a plain sill course to the ground floor, quoins, and a moulded cornice with modillions. It has a slate roof and ashlar chimneys. The building is two storeys high with barred sash windows in architrave surrounds. The western front contains seven bays, with the central three bays slightly projecting and topped by a pediment with a shallow recessed arch over the ground floor windows. The centre of the ground floor features a Serlian window with rusticated blocks over the central arch and Doric jambs. The flanking ground floor windows have pulvinated friezes and pediments—segmental to the end bays. The outer bays contain bullseye windows between storeys, those to the right being blind and painted. The central first-floor window has a lugged architrave, with a small round window in the pediment above.

The north front was altered in the 1790s and has five bays with alternating segmental and triangular pediments to the ground floor windows, those in bays two and three featuring double doors. The south front of three bays is constructed of header bond red brick with a plain parapet, stone sill course, and stone window architraves.

The remainder of the house is three storeys with basement. The north and part of the east fronts are of mid-18th-century brick with vitreous headers, red dressings, and gauged heads to windows. These fronts have a plain parapet and brick band courses with barred sash windows, some round-headed with intersecting glazing bars and some Serlian in form. A 19th-century tower stands to the right of the north front. The 19th-century south front is of red brick with stone architraves to sash windows and two full-height canted bay windows with stone mullions and transoms.

Internally, the older part of the house contains a 17th-century fireplace on the ground floor. The south-east room has early 18th-century bolection panelling in the entrance hall, and 17th-century panelling with a carved frieze re-sited in a second-floor room. The western wing features exceptionally fine contemporary decoration. The first-floor rooms, the North Hall and Pink Parlour, display extravagant Rococo decoration with scrolls, foliage, birds, and exotic motifs in carved wood by Lightfoot, together with carved marble fireplaces and 6 or 8-panel mahogany doors with mouldings. The North Hall, Gothic Room, and Chinese Room are especially impressive, the latter featuring a pagoda-like alcove and doorcases. The Saloon and Library were decorated under the direction of Sir Thomas Robinson with heavily classical wooden doorcases, marble fireplaces, and elaborate plaster ceilings in the style of Robert Adam, executed by Joseph Rose.

A fine staircase features inlaid treads, risers, handrail, landings and soffits, a carved string, and a delicate wrought iron balustrade of scrollwork with ears of wheat. Above is a glazed oval dome with a carved frieze of sea creatures. The western wing is the surviving part of a larger scheme; the house formerly extended to the north with a central rotunda and matching ballroom wing designed by Robinson, demolished in 1792.