It stands adjacent to the Old Manor, a late sixteenth or early seventeenth-century building that was the original residence on the site.

[4] The oldest building on the site is the Old Manor, which incorporates elements of a medieval house and which was built in two stages around the turn of the seventeenth century by Francis Wightwick and his son, Alexander.

[5][6] In the same year, Theodore married Flora, the daughter of Henry Nicholas Paint, a merchant and member of the Parliament of Canada.

This was completed in 1887, and consisted of the western half of the present house and a single-storey west wing containing a billiard room.

Taking inspiration from this lecture, Theodore and his wife Flora decorated its interiors with the designs of William Morris and his Arts and Crafts contemporaries.

However, the Pre-Raphaelite collection was mostly assembled after the house was donated to the National Trust, particularly by Geoffrey Mander and his second wife, Rosalie, who was an art historian.

The house had no guest bedrooms and proved too small by 1893, when the billard room was demolished and a new east wing built.