The Vyne is a Grade I listed[1] 16th-century country house in the parish of Sherborne St John, near Basingstoke, in Hampshire, England.

In the mid-18th century the house belonged to John Chaloner Chute, a close friend of the architectural pioneer Horace Walpole, who designed the principal stair hall containing an imperial staircase the grand scale of which belies its true small size.

The origins of the name, earliest preserved on a document dated 1268,[2] are uncertain; one theory suggests that it refers to Vindomis, a Roman road station,[3] whilst another that it was the site of the first domestically grown vines in England.

[11] Colonel Sandys died of his wounds following the Battle of Cheriton and nine years later, in 1653, his son William 6th Baron sold The Vyne to Chaloner Chute, a prosperous lawyer and later MP.

[15] In the 18th century, Chaloner's descendant John Chute[b] undertook significant renovations to the house, including a new interior to the chapel, the construction of the tomb and the installation of the staircase.

The author Maurice Howard in his book, The Vyne, suggests that the house, may have rivalled Hampton Court, the palace of the King's favourite, Cardinal Wolsey.

"[26] Work began in 1500 and it can be reliably assumed that by 1510 The Vyne was a sizeable and comfortable mansion because in that year Sandys entertained King Henry VIII during his royal progress.

[16] Immediately upon purchase, Chute embarked on a radical redesign, by sweeping away the Base Court of the former house and all its precincts to the north – the area occupied by lawns and the lake today.

One of the greatest obstacles to any attempt at true symmetry was the blue diapering the red Tudor brickwork, this created huge lozenge patterns in the walls which could never symmetrically match the newly installed even placed windows.

It has "abrupt" side opening; these are rectangular and bricked rather than more conventionally arched and plastered while the pediment itself is made of painted wood rather than stone.

The impression of symmetrical Palladianism was further enforced by the screening by trees of the chapel wing at the eastern end of the house; these remained in situ until the nineteenth century.

In this process he was influenced by his friend Horace Walpole, who had developed the innovative romantic Gothic style at his own country home, Strawberry Hill in Twickenham.

[13] Many of the alterations and additions executed under Walpole's advice were replacements of old Tudor features which had been removed during the previous classical re-modelling, notably the battlements and towers.

[32] Walpole, although the leading arbiter of good taste, was not allowed to have full control of the re-modelling and many of his suggestions for architectural reform at The Vyne went unheeded.

[citation needed] In 1842, William Wiggett, who sought to preserve the historic character of the house, acquired furniture and paintings related to John Chute at the sale of the estate of Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill.

[33] The antechapel, one of the rooms still preserved in its medieval state, contains a painting of the Last Supper by Giovanni Domenico Ferretti which was requested from Horace Mann by Walpole on Chute's behalf.

[32] The chapel itself was built by William Sandys, replacing an earlier structure, and today retains the ribbed ceilings and intricately carved pews of the 16th century.

[41] Within a few years of its completion, most Tudor mansions of note were to have such a room – used for entertaining, exercising and display, their very length became a matter of competition and pride and the dimensions of the long gallery at The Vyne were soon exceeded.

The early date of the gallery, and its intended use as solely for exercise, is confirmed by the fact that it leads nowhere – one enters at the northern end and has no choice but to exit by the same door.

It seems though, that the Sandys display of their wealth in their long gallery was not as large as some of their contemporaries, an inventory of 1547, reports that the room was devoid of pictures and barely furnished.

During the eighteenth century, the grounds were landscaped on the newly fashionable natural parkland style exemplified by the work of Capability Brown and later Humphrey Repton.