Hughenden Manor

Hughenden Manor is a large mansion, now partly used as a Disraeli museum and offices, with a core dating to 1738. It was extended in the late 18th century and remodelled around 1860 by E.B. Lamb for Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, a prominent novelist and politician who played a central role in the creation of the modern Conservative party and served twice as British Prime Minister. A west wing was added around 1900 for Coningsby Disraeli.

The mansion is constructed of red and vitreous brick with slate roofs, featuring diagonal brick chimney shafts topped with cogged pyramidal caps. It has three storeys and cellars, with a first-floor band course, string courses at the impost levels of the first and second floor windows (the lower string cogged), a dentilled cornice, a stepped parapet with a dentil course and stone coping, diagonal pinnacles with stone finials, and corbelled diagonal wall-shafts. The eight-bay entrance front has a recessed arcade of four centre bays, with a single-storey arcade. The ground floor left bays and the first floor have cross windows; tall three-light transomed windows are on the ground floor right, while the second floor has horizontal sliding sashes, three-light in the outer bays and two-light in the centre bays. All windows incorporate narrow horizontal glazing bars and segmental brick hoods with diagonal flanking pendants. A glazed arcade with four-centred arches of three orders, a dentil cornice and a parapet repeats the architectural detials. An entrance is located in the third arch. A two-storey, two-bay projection, formerly a service block, is situated to the right, with a matching service wing added around 1900. The garden front has nine bays, with canted projections to bays three and seven, stone steps leading to the centre bays, and cellar windows to the remainder. Tall ground floor windows feature large arched lower lights and twin top lights; the remaining fenestration is similar to that of the entrance front. Both fronts have small stone coats-of-arms to the centre.

The interior includes two mid-18th century stone-panelled fireplaces with keyblocks and cornices and a late 18th century plaster ceiling in the north-east top floor room, featuring a moulded cornice and bowl-of-fruit motifs on the frieze. Ground floor rooms and the staircase were Gothicised by John Norris around 1840 and by Disraeli around 1860, incorporating fan-vaulting, moulded four-centred arches to the hall, a former library with a ribbed ceiling and a screen of two four-centred arches, and a dining room with a heavily moulded Gothick alcove, traceried wall panels, and a ribbed ceiling with small wooden pendants. The staircase features a wooden balustrade of ogee arches, ribbed plaster soffits and traceried skylights. Circa 1900 doorcases and alterations are visible in the north-east corner.

From 1848 to 1881, Hughenden was the home of Benjamin Disraeli. The property is now owned by the National Trust.