Patrick Comerford
Castle House on West Street is one of the grandest and most interesting houses in Buckingham. This Grade I listed-building It is neither a castle nor on the site of Buckingham’s early castle. But it has a fascinating historical and architectural heritage and it is, in the words of the architectural historian Sir Nicholas Pevsner, ‘by far the most important house in the town.’
But I wanted too to see Castle House this week because of its associations with two important local architects in the 19th century: the north side was so dilapidated that on the advice of Sir George Gilbert Scott it was pulled down and the house was thrown open to the garden terraces on the north side; the left or west wing of Castle House was restored and altered by the Stony Stratford architect Edward Swinfen Harris in 1881.
Castle House dates from the 14th century origins, and it was owned by the Barton family in 1431, when John Barton founded Barton's Chantry and Hospital on Church Street, Buckingham. The side of Castle House facing the road is newer, dating from 1708. Although some renovations have been made over time, the west side remains the oldest surviving part of the building.
It was the home of the Fowler family from the mid-15th century until 1590. Sir William Fowler (ca1400-1467?) was MP for Wycombe in Buckinghamshire in 1431. William Fowler was MP for Buckingham in 1467. His son, Sir Richard Fowler (1425-1477), was Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (1462-1477) and Chancellor of the Exchequer (1469-1471) and left a bequest for rebuilding Saint Rumbold’s shrine in Buckingham.
Castle House had many royal and notable visitors, including Henry VII in 1494. From Castle House, Catharine of Aragon, the first wife of Henry VIII, directed her forces during the Battle of Flodden in September, 1513 while he was in France at war.
The house was rebuilt by William and Mary Lambard during the reign of James I and they made important alterations to the house. The initials on the datestones are theirs.
After William Lambard died, his widow Mary Lambard married Sir Edward Richardson. For four days in June, 1644, Charles I was their guest at Castle House. There he held a council of war in the house with his nephew, Prince Rupert, and the king made the fateful and fatal decision not to march on London during the Civil War.
Mary Crawley, widow of John Crawley of Someries, Bedfordshire, and daughter of William Lambard, inherited Castle House and brought it in marriage in 1641 to Sir Edward Bagot (1616 -1673) of Blithfield Hall near Rugeley, MP for Staffordshire (1660). Mary Bagot died in 1686, and Castle House was later bought by the Rogers family. The front range was rebuilt for Matthias Rogers, who inherited the house, and all the front rooms were rebuilt in 1706-1708.
At one time in the 18th century, the judges on their circuit always lodged in Castle House. During their grand tour of English gardens and farms in early 1786, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams probably visited Castle House when they were visiting the Duke of Buckingham at nearby Stowe.
Philip Box, the representative of the Irish branch of the family, sold Castle House ca 1835 to Thomas Hearn (1782-1862), an alderman and prominent solicitor in Buckingham.
The house was then quadrangular in shape, but the north side was so dilapidated that on the advice of the architect Sir George Gilbert Scott (1811-1878), who was born nearby in Gawcott, it was pulled down and the house thrown open to the garden terraces on the north side.
The Great Parlour in Castle House was restored in 1881 under the direction of the Stony Stratford architect Edward Swinfen Harris (1841-1924), who restored and altered the left or west wing. He added an oak beam to those already spanning the room, and threw open the north window, which for a long time had been shut off by a partition from the other portion of the apartment. He also put new glass into the two windows on the west side of the room.
The house has been described as ‘a compendium of English architecture’. It consists of three separate wings: an east wing built ca 1370 as a separate a mediaeval hall house, with a 16th century Elizabethan addition and an added Victorian kitchen; a west wing built in 1407 also originally a separate mediaeval hall house; and a south wing built in 1708, being one of the few surviving, true Queen Anne houses.
The main range of Castle House is built of red brick in Flemish bond with limestone dressings, hipped plain-tile roofs, and brick ridge stacks. Two bays at either end of the front break forward to form shallow wings and have raised quoins.
The west wing, where Swinfen Harris worked, appears to have originally consisted of a large ground floor room over a cellar and first-floor hall. Both rooms have been reduced by at least one bay and the west wing has been partly rebuilt in brick with a wood mullion and transom window on the ground and first floors on the garden side.
The dining room in the west of the hall has painted deal fielded panelling with segmental-arched recesses above cupboards on either side of the chimney-breast. The eared wood chimney-piece has an egg-and-dart ornament and overmantel panel with similar ornament and a swan’s neck pediment framing a reused plaster panel of Cupid and Psyche.
The former Great Parlour has a many-moulded cross beam ceiling with wall posts, hollow-chamfered arch braces to tie-beams and cusped tracery in the spandrels. The chimney-piece is a 19th century composite, incorporating old woodwork. It has Salamonic half-columns flanking a fireplace with two-tiered overmantel, the lower tier divided in three with central panel inscribed ANNO 1619/ WL ML, referring to William and Mary Lambard. The upper tier was probably a Jacobean bedroom overmantel with paired columns and twin round-arched headed panels with strapwork.
A 19th century two-storey canted bay window at the gable end has an impressed decoration in the render above ground-floor windows and a datestone above inscribed 1623/L/WM.
The distinctive late 19th woodwork in the doors, bay window and other places were designed by Swinfen Harris. The bedroom above at the bay window end has 17th century panelling with strapwork ornament to the top row and fireplace with a Jacobean overmantel that has vine trail to columns that frame two round arch-headed panels.
Other interesting features inside the house include a staircase hall with open-well stair, slender turned balusters of columns on bulbous feet. The second floor has an original open roof with tie beam trusses, with queen posts.
From 1963 to 1974, Castle House was the offices of Buckingham Borough Council, and its gardens became a popular lunch spot for residents. It was sold into private ownership after the Borough Council became part of Aylesbury Vale District Council. The present unitary council, Buckinghamshire Council, was formed in 2020.
Castle House was on the market four years ago (2021) through Knight Frank with an asking price of £4 million.
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