Lydeard House, Attached Stables And Walls Abutting Entrance To The Latter

Lydeard House, along with its attached stables and walls at the entrance to the stables, is a country house built in the early to mid 18th century, with later enlargements in the late 18th century and mid 19th century. The building is constructed of red sandstone random rubble, featuring an ashlar facade on the main block and stables entrance, with limestone dressings and quoins. It has hipped slate roofs and rendered chimneys.

The main block has a five-bay design and is linked to the stables on the left by a set-back five-bay wing. It is two storeys high with an attic, displaying a symmetrical arrangement of two bays, a central bay that slightly projects forward, and a dentil moulded cornice. The central bay features an oval window in the tympanum with a rusticated surround, flanked by two gabled dormers. The first floor has nine-pane sash windows, while the ground floor has twelve-pane sash windows with moulded surrounds and lintels. A central glazed door is sheltered by a wooden Ionic portico supported by paired columns on a shared plinth, also with a dentil moulded cornice.

On the right return, the building is finished in random rubble and includes a canted full-height bay with six-pane sash windows on the first floor and twelve-pane sash windows on the ground floor, all in moulded surrounds. To the left, the set-back five-bay block connects the stables entrance to a single-storey, two-bay flat-roofed addition at the angle of the house and wing, with irregularly placed twelve-pane sash windows in the outer bays, all featuring similar surrounds.

Originally, the stables and house were separate, with the house including the flat-roofed extension. They were joined by a three-bay addition in the mid 19th century. The stable entrance facade is made of red sandstone ashlar with limestone dressings and quoins, standing two and a half storeys high with a gabled design that includes a circular window and string courses. The first floor features an arched divided tracery window above an arched carriageway, with rusticated jambs, limestone vermiculated detailing, and a chamfered archivolt with keystones. The entrance is set at an angle to the stable courtyard. The abutting walls on the facade are made of red sandstone random rubble, topped with limestone balustrades that terminate in square piers with pineapple finials, facing the length of the wall at the entrance gateway. Inside, the decoration reflects a late 18th-century Gothick to Elizabethan style.