[2] The house was designed by George Somers Leigh Clarke for the Lancashire cotton magnate and Conservative politician Edward Hermon and was built between 1874 and 1884.

[3] Its style combines the Flamboyant period of French Gothic architecture with a touch of Scots Baronial.

[3] Indoors, the main corridor is rib vaulted with staircase hall and a multi-storey wide bay window with stained glass of royal coats of arms.

Hodge secured a seat in the Commons at the 1895 general election as MP for the Southern or Henley Division of Oxfordshire.

[6] After his wife died in 1929, Hodge had little use for such a large house and, in 1932, he sold it to the Government who converted it for medical use as Borocourt Hospital.