Langham House and Attached Stables

Langham House and its attached stables are a country house, reputedly dating to 1792 and designed by T Baldwin for William Lydyard, with an addition of 1810. The house is constructed of ashlar, with a moulded cornice, a balustraded parapet topped with coping, and stone urns at the corners. It has a hipped slate roof and two low ashlar stacks with moulded caps. The architectural style is Classical. The main house is three storeys high and five bays wide, featuring sash windows with glazing bars. Ground floor windows have semi-circular heads set within shallow arched recesses. A plain stone band runs along the second floor level, with a moulded string below the cornice and an impost band with interlaced decoration at ground floor level. The central entrance has a six-panelled door and fanlight with decorative glazing bars, leading to a stone portico with a flat entablature supported by four Tuscan columns and Tuscan pilasters built into the walls. A single-storey wing of three bays to the right was added by Adam, featuring tall French windows with glazing bars and marginal lights, a moulded cornice, a balustraded parapet with corner urns, and a hipped slate roof. A single-storey, three-bay semi-circular bow window extends from the rear elevation, with sash windows, glazing bars, a balustraded parapet, and corner urns. Attached stables are located at the rear of the right return. These have a hipped slate roof, two broad segmental-headed openings to the ground floor, a plank door, and two glazed pitching eyes above. The interior, accessed through a hall flanked by two Tuscan columns, largely retains its late 18th-century character. Most ground floor rooms have plaster friezes and cornices, with the finest examples found in the dining room, alongside most original fireplaces. In 1860, the house, then known as Road Hill House, became infamous as the setting for the murder of three-year-old Francis Savill Kent. The house’s name was subsequently changed to Langham House due to the notoriety this event brought.