Buscot Park - Architecture

Architecture

The construction of Buscot Park was begun in 1780, for Edward Loveden Loveden, whose family had owned land adjacent to the site since 1557. The land upon which he chose to build the house itself was owned by the neighbouring Throckmorton estate. Loveden Loveden did not acquire ownership of the land upon which his house was built until 1788. The architect is unknown, and it is likely that Loveden himself had a hand in the design. Loveden is known to have employed James Darley at this time; a little known architect, described by a contemporary as "able and experienced." The names of other far more eminent architects have been mentioned in connection with Buscot, including that of Robert Adam, but there is no documented evidence that any of these architects worked on the house; it therefore seems likely their involvement is apocryphal. It is known that James Paine supplied fireplaces and advised on the building costs, but the general design of the mansion is unsophisticated and not in character with Paine's work, making it unlikely that his involvement was major.

The house is constructed of local stone and materials with Portland stone adornments. The roof is of Westmorland slate. Some of the building materials were bought second-hand, following demolitions and alterations to Kempsford House, Gloucestershire, and Charlton House. Whoever the architect was, the design fails to follow the strict dictates of either the Palladian style, which was passing from fashion, or those of the neoclassical style, which had been becoming popular in England from the late 1760s. Christopher Hussey, writing in 1940, opined that "The architect owed much to Robert Adam and the pattern books of the admirable tradesmen of the day."

Unusually for a house of this period, the house has neither portico nor pilasters to break the austerity of the facade. Contemporary drawings show that the principal and central entrance originally had a segmented pediment, a motif of the Baroque, long out of fashion by the 1780s. This entrance, like the principal reception rooms, was placed in the first floor, on a piano nobile in Palladian style, leaving the ground floor free for the domestic and estate offices and service rooms. However, in neoclassical style, above the principal floor is a second floor, its windows having equal value to those below, indicating that here were principal bedrooms rather than secondary and servants' rooms, as would have been the case in a Palladian or Baroque design.

The severity of the facade, which is of nine bays, is only relieved by a band between the two major floors and the slight projection of the central three bays which are crowned by a low pediment. Following the Palldian tradition, the ground floor is rusticated. The roofline has only a very low parapet and no balustrade, thus leaving the hipped roof and chimneys completely visible. The high slate roof is pierced by two gable windows, more reminiscent of a farmhouse than a sophisticated mansion. The north front more truly follows the neoclassical style, in its English form, of the later 18th century. Two large bows project to flank the central three bays.

In 1859, the house and estate were sold by Loveden Loveden's great grandson, Sir Pryse Pryse. The new owner was an Australian gold trader, Robert Tertius Campbell. A keen agriculturist, Campbell extensively modernised the estate, seriously depleting his fortune in the process. During the early 1850s, Campbell considered vastly expanding the mansion, and plans were drawn up showing the house transformed to a turreted palace in a loose English renaissance style. Ultimately, Campbell decided against any grandiose schemes and contented himself by adding a porch, parapet and gabled windows to the neoclassical south front in an incongruous Neo-Renaissance style.

It was at this time that many of the estate's woodlands were planted, along with the creation of new gardens and the carriage drive which form the nucleus of the gardens today. Campbell died in 1887, his fortune spent and the estate mortgaged. Buscot was then acquired by Alexander Henderson, later to be ennobled as the first Baron Farringdon. Henderson, an eminent London stockbroker and financier, enlarged the house with a large wing.

In the 1930s, a time when many country houses were being pulled down, converted to schools or standing empty, Buscot enjoyed a renaissance. In 1934, it was inherited by the 2nd Lord Faringdon. The new Lord Faringdon inherited Buscot from his grandfather, the 1st Lord Faringdon, and immediately embarked upon a major remodelling project. He swept away the 19th-century additions of his grandfather and Campbell, returning the facades to their original 18th-century simplicity.

To compensate for the space lost through the demolition, he commissioned the architect Geddes Hyslop to create two flanking pavilions in a loose Palladian style. These pavilions, in reality rectangular but detached wings, had temple fronts complementing the two principal facades, and gave the side elevations of the mansion added grandeur and interest. This was achieved by the addition of a triumphal arch to an otherwise blank curtain wall. The pavilions are given unity with the mansion by high yew hedges acting as walls, which link the buildings, accentuating the Palladianism of the design.

Hyslop's work was not all restoration. Immediately adjacent to the east facade, in a court created by newly planted yew hedging linking the mansion and East Pavilion, Hyslop created a swimming pool garden. The placing of pools was a problem to the owners of country houses in the 20th century; the pools would be treated with some "circumspection" and disguised as something else. Thus, at Buscot, the pool appears as a formal canal pond set in a renaissance garden.