Description

1.
5028 BUSHY PARK

Bushy House
TQ 1570 19/12 2.9.52

II*

2.
Present mansion built for Lord Halifax in reign of George II on site of earlier
building. Home for 36 years of William IV both as Duke of Clarence and also after
his accession.
Various alterations and additions of his date. Now house of the Director of the
National Physical Laboratory, with basement and ground floor used as laboratories.
Stands in its own grounds of 7 acres.
The original house consists of a square centre block with a lower square pavilion at
each corner linked to the main front by a curved screen wall and passage. All in
brown brick, red dressings. The early C19 alterations and additions are in stock
brick and the whole house was re-sashed at this date.
Centre block: 3-storeys and basement. Seven windows on all fronts, bands between
storeys and small cornice below top floor. Parapet with stone capping. Old greenish
slate roof.
Pavilions: One-storey, 3 round-headed windows (many blank) with stone archivolts and
key blocks, eaves cornice. Slate roof with lead hips with little urn finials.
East (Main Entrance) Front: 3-window centre slightly recessed. Central stone porch
with fluted and reeded Ionic columns with enriched caps, and swags carved in the round
between the volutes, enriched entablature and cornice. Original wrought iron railings
to steps. Round-headed window on either side of porch. Early C19 one-storey buildings
built into the curve of screen walls and against pavilions, 4 windows to sides and
semi-circular bays at ends.
South (Garden) Front: Overlooking Bushy Park. Windows 1-5-1 with central round-headed
window on first floor. Windows at either end of facade blocked (when extra chimneys
inserted in early C19). Ground floor stuccoed and windows altered to French under
lead-roofed iron verandah across front with central projecting porch at head of double
flight of steps. Windows on top floor modern casements. Curved passages to pavilions
with round-headed windows. The pavilions themselves have stone Tuscan porches filled
in with brick work and with round-headed windows, on the sides facing each other.
On the ends they are stuccoed with tall square-headed windows under lead hooded iron
verandahs across the front.
West Front (also on Garden): As east front (q.v.) with early C19 buildings in angles of
screen walls and pavilions. Early C19 Tuscan porch with 3 columns grouped at the
corners.
North Front: Masked by early C19 stock brick additions - notably a wing built out in
centre. These are 3-storey but much lower; 3 windows each side with plain modillion
cornice and slate roof. Central stock of coupled arches. Wooden porte cochere. This
part contained the later kitchen and service quarters. Facing across what was once
the coach yard are some other early C19 buildings formerly the stables.
Interior: Mainly of early C19 and later and very plain. Little of the original
decoration remains beyond 2 staircases and some panelling and carved doors and shutters,
and the fireplace and woodwork of the hall. Many of the rooms are now lined with dis-
tempered paper over canvas apparently covering the earlier panelling.
There is one small octagonal room, "The Little Library", lined with early C19 grained
yellow and black bookcases with "Gothic" wire grilles.

Listing NGR: TQ1557770357

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Bushy House at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q5001608

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

• 
  Hampshire: Winchester and the North (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Gloucestershire 1: The Cotswolds: Cotswolds Pt. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Period Property Manual (New Ed)
• 
  Maintaining and Repairing Old Houses: A Guide to Conservation, Sustainability and Economy
• 
  Cornwall (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Bedfordshire, Huntingdon and Peterborough)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1968)