Althorp House

Althorp House is a country house originally built around 1508 for John Spencer and substantially remodelled by Henry Holland in 1789. The exterior is finished with white mathematical tiles and ashlar dressing beneath a slate roof.

The building was originally arranged around a courtyard but now presents a U-plan configuration. The south front displays two storeys with an attic storey. A symmetrical central range of five windows is flanked by wings with vestibule projections. Large ashlar pilasters with Corinthian capitals rise between the windows of the centre range, supporting a pediment with entablature. The central entrance features a pedimented surround with nineteenth-century half-glazed doors. Sash windows with glazing bars throughout have moulded stone heads and surrounds. The hipped roofs, except over the vestibule projections, feature dormers with pediments. A moulded cornice runs across the facade, with lateral and central stacks. A large armorial moulding appears in the pediment. The west and north fronts are similar compositions, each of ten bays, with the end and centre bays breaking forward with an oculus in the pediment above. The north front has central and flanking sash windows with pediments over them. A nineteenth-century single-storey dining room wing by MacVicar Anderson is attached to the right, its central three bays breaking forward in similar style to the main house. The east side retains nineteenth-century ironstone and slate-roofed service wings which have undergone twentieth-century modifications.

The interior contains numerous significant rooms. The Wootton Hall serves as the central south entrance hall, full height with a coffered ceiling, moulded frieze and cornice designed by Colen Campbell and executed by Roger Morris in 1773. Four symmetrical entrances open from it, two with pediments and one centrally placed with a broken pediment supported on fluted Corinthian columns. The South Drawing Room to the west has a fireplace by Lancelot Wood dated 1802 and a ceiling by Broadbent of Leicester from 1865. The adjacent Rubens Room to the north contains a similar ceiling and a chimney piece by Holland made by Deval. The long Library continues north, forming a tripartite apartment with screens of Ionic columns and an Adam style ceiling. The Marlborough Room occupies the western half of the north front and contains two Greek Revival fireplaces by John Vardy, carved by Scheemakers, originally from Spencer House in London. The Sunderland Room occupies the eastern half of the north front and retains its original seventeenth-century cornice; two fireplaces here were made respectively by John Vardy and James Stuart, also originally from Spencer House. The dining room wing to the north-east by MacVicar Anderson is designed as a double cube with a coffered ceiling. The small dining room to the east of the Wootton Hall features a seventeenth-century fireplace and panelling from Wormleighton, a former Spencer house. The Blue Sitting Room at the south-east end of the east wing contains inset blue and white panels painted by Pernotin and transferred to its present location in the nineteenth century, designed by Holland.

The central courtyard was converted into a saloon and staircase in 1650. It now contains a wide straight flight stair with two intermediate landings and short branches to left and right leading to first-floor flanking galleries added by Holland. The stair features large oak balusters and handrail beneath a coffered ceiling with three roof lights, the latter additions by MacVicar Anderson.

The first-floor rooms include a Chapel in the east range with a bolection-moulded chimney piece by Joshua Marshall and reset armorial glass in the windows dated 1588. The range of rooms in the north front contain fireplaces by P.C. Hardwick (1850), Repton, and Lancelot Wood, some of which are reset. The Picture Gallery in the western range dates to the seventeenth century and features restored bolection panelling; its chimney piece was made by James Stuart and comes from Spencer House. Two service stairs in the east range retain late seventeenth-century balusters.