Knightshayes Court is one of several hundred large country houses built by the Victorians in the boom years of industrial development during the 1860s and early 1870s. It was the home of the Heathcoat Amory family, whose fortune was first established by John Heathcoat, a pioneer in the manufacture of lace. Architects of Victorian country houses often designed dozens of houses over the course of their careers; Knighsthayes, however, was exceptional because its architect, William Burges, was primarily a builder of churches and a decorator. The result is an elevated and robust Gothic façade with unmoulded mullions and only a few plate tracery quatrefoils. Massive gargoyles, stylised leaves and an angel in the centre gable demonstrate Burges’s enthusiasm for 13th-century French architecture. The interior is replete with his neo-Gothic and often eccentric designs, including a vaulted hall, gilded ceilings, castellated chimneypieces and extravagantly carved corbels.
One of the finest surviving Gothic Revival houses, Knightshayes Court, former home of the Heathcoat Amory family, is a rare example of the work of the eccentric and inspired architect William Burges.
