Rayners Lodge, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire

Summary

A gate lodge to Rayners House designed by A Vernon in 1874.

Description

A gate lodge to Rayners House possibly designed by David Brandon or Arthur Vernon in the 1870s.

MATERIALS & PLAN: red brick with yellow brick dressings and blue brick diapering, and a plain tiled roof with fishscale tile ornament. The building has two floors.

EXTERIOR: the south front faces the drive and has three bays with mullioned and transomed windows. At left is a projecting gabled wing which has a four-light window with lean-to roof and a three-light window to the first floor. To its right is a gabled, single-storey porch with Tudor arch and gabled head. To its right is a further four-light casement window and above it is a single-light window which rises into the roof area with a gabled head. Old photographs show that the ground-floor window at left was formerly an oriel, but that the brackets beneath it have now been replaced by red bricks. They also show that the ground-floor windows had stained glass panels to their upper lights, but these have now been removed and some have been replaced by uPVC substitutes.

The eastern face has a projecting square bay window at ground floor left with a two-light window to the centre and singe lights to the sides. At first-floor level is a gabled semi-dormer with tiled flanks.

INTERIOR: the passageways to both floors are wide. The staircase has moulded tread ends and stick balusters with turned newels and a hardwood handrail. Fire surrounds have been replaced or lost.

History

The estate around Rayners House was originally two farms which were bought by Philip Rose in 1845; Rayners Farm and Colehatch Farm. Rose had been born in Wycombe and became a successful City solicitor. His partnership was responsible for the legal work on behalf of the Great Northern Railway, and Rose himself invested in the company. Personally, he also became a friend of Disraeli and both helped to found the Brompton Hospital for Tuberculosis patients. Disraeli’s house, Hughenden Manor is close to Rayners and Rose looked after his legal affairs from 1846. In 1874, when Disraeli became prime minister, he made Rose a baronet.

The essentially bare farmland was gradually turned into an estate with gardens and the planting of belts of trees during the latter part of the C19. The first part of the house was built in 1847 with additions made in the 1850s and a substantial remodelling in 1867-1868 by David Brandon. Garden buildings including the greenhouses to the north-west of the house were added by the second baronet. Bricks were made using clay dug from the estate. The gate lodge on Church Lane was possibly added during the extensions by Brandon, or else in 1874 to the designs of Arthur Vernon, who was also Disraeli's agent to the estate at Hughenden and designed the similar southern gate lodge at Loudwater (see SOURCES, Pevsner).

The house was initially used as a summer retreat from London by the family, but it became a more conventional country estate which eventually extended to 550 acres. The second baronet died in 1919 and the estate passed to his grandson, whose trustees decided to sell. It was bought in 1920 by the London County Council who turned the house into a school for deaf children. It remained as a school, with a large classroom block and gymnasium added to the east in the mid C20. The school closed in 2016.

Reasons for Listing

Rayners Lodge, Rayners House, Penn is listed at Grade II for the following principal reason:

Architectural interest:

* the lodge has an attractive design that heralds the style of the main house.

Historic interest:

* the building forms part of the country house and estate which Philip Rose established at Tylers Green.

Group value:

* with Stratfords and Gable Cottage, Penn and Rayners House, Penn, all Grade II.

External Links

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