Aldby Park

Aldby Park is a country house dating to 1726, with a 20th-century addition. It may have been designed by the owner, John Brewster, influenced by the architecture of Nicholas Hawksmoor. The house is constructed of brick in Flemish bond, with ashlar dressings and a Welsh slate roof. Originally designed with a double-pile plan and an entrance to the south, it has since been altered to feature a central hallway entry with an entrance to the west and a 20th-century orangery to the south.

The garden front is three stories with a basement, arranged as nine bays with a 1:2:3:2:1 facade, with the central three bays breaking forward, featuring quoins and bands to both the ground and first floors. The central three-bay section has ashlar cladding, flanked by rusticated pilasters, and the ground floor is marked by Ionic pilasters supporting an entablature. The first floor is similarly articulated with Composite fluted pilasters supporting a frieze carved with a pheasant between two foxes, topped by a dentilled pediment. This is richly decorated, including a cypher of George I on a banner and a central shield displaying the combined arms of Darley and Brewster, surmounted by a bust of George I. The second floor has plain pilasters. Basement windows are 6-pane sashes within rusticated surrounds and triple keystones. A flight of steps leads to the central entrance, which has double doors beneath a radial fanlight. Sash windows with glazing bars are present in the outer bays, displayed within eared architraves on consoles. The central section features round-arched sashes with glazing bars and radial glazing in the heads, flanked by pilasters and with moulded archivolts to the ground and first floors. The second-floor windows have glazing bars with a blind central panel. The ground-floor windows are set upon balustrades, while the first-floor windows are topped by panels with carved enrichment; the central panel bears the initials J B. Rainwater heads feature, inscribed 'B' with a dog’s head crest on the clamps. A balustrade with ball finials runs along the central section, with a plain parapet to the outer bays.

The interior was significantly altered in the early 19th century by Henry Brewster Darley, but a Vanbrugian-style chimney piece remains in the entrance hall, alongside most of the 18th-century panelling. An early 19th-century imperial staircase is found in the entrance hall, dividing into two flights. Aldby Park was the home of the Darley Arabian, an 18th-century ancestor of the modern thoroughbred racehorse breed.