Description

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 16 January 2026 to amend the name and address and reformat the text to current standards

SP32NE
5/85

HEYTHROP
HEYTHROP PARK
Heythrop House

(Formerly listed as National Westminster Bank Staff College - Main House, previously listed as Heythrop House (College of St. Robert Bellarmine))

27/08/57

GV
II*

Country house (main range). Circa 1705 by Thomas Archer for Charles Talbot, first Duke of Shrewsbury; gutted by fire 1831; restored and partly rebuilt 1871 by Alfred Waterhouse for Albert Brassey. Limestone ashlar; Welsh-slate roofs with ashlar stacks. Double-courtyard plan, partly infilled. Baroque style.

Two storeys plus concealed attic on a semi-basement. Symmetrical entrance front has bay divisions of 2:2:3:2:2 with the end sections breaking forward and the centre recessed behind a projecting portico; a grand order of Corinthian pilasters and columns, rising from a rusticated basement, supports a deep entablature incorporating consoles on the projecting sections and modillions on the recessed bays. Roof has a high balustraded parapet. Windows have elaborate eared and shouldered stone architraves, at ground floor with straight entablatures but at first floor with large double-stepped keyblocks, and the return walls of the central recess have architraved niches to both floors. Central doorway has a fine perspective doorcase with a concave entablature carried on scrolls and supporting a large stone trophy of arms. Carved panels within the first floor windows are the only C19 alteration. Broad steps to portico are flanked by walls terminating in panelled pedestals carrying large C19 iron lamp standards.

Garden front has similar two bay projections flanking a nine bay central section, which is unornamented save for horizontal rustication and the Doric doorcase; the basement of the central section is in plain ashlar but has architraved windows with scrolled pediments. The balustraded double stair rises over an arched recess with vermiculated voussoirs. Nine window return fronts break forward in the middle five bays between rusticated quoin strips and have architraved windows, at first floor with keyblocks, but the north front also has horizontal and vertical bands between the windows, and the central window has an inverted pediment on tapering pilasters.

Interior: C19 arcaded two storey hall in Baroque style has a large fireplace and clerestory windows with figures of Faith, Hope and Charity by Morris and Co; the stone staircase rises behind the lower arcade. Principal's Lounge and Charlbury Room have heavy C19 panelling, fireplaces and coffered ceilings, the doors with ebony mouldings on mahogany and walnut. Wedgwood Room has an Adam-style ceiling and a white marble fireplace inset with five Classical Wedgwood panels and with Oriental porcelain panels in the splays. Bar has a marble fireplace with Tuscan columns and a central relief of a child leading a lion. Heythrop Room has a vaulted ceiling and a small fireplace inlaid with coloured marble. The original design may have been influenced by a scheme of Paolo Falconieri and includes details from Italian sources; it was executed by Francis Smith of Warwick. Heythrop is Archer's most important country house.

(Buildings of England: Oxfordshire: pp647-9; VCH: Oxfordshire: Vol XI, p135; Country Life: 1905: Vol 18, pp270-6) -

Listing NGR: SP3639126437

External Links

• Heythrop Park at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q5749809

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  [(Bedfordshire, Huntingdon and Peterborough)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1968)
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Sussex: West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Drawing up a Local Listed Building Consent Order: Historic England Advice Note 6
• 
  [(Cumberland and Westmorland)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1967)
• 
  Somerset: South and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)