Exbury House, English country house in Exbury and Lepe, England.
Exbury House is a three-storey brick and ashlar mansion in Exbury and Lepe, Hampshire, England, with nine bays along its garden frontage, a colonnaded entrance, and a slate roof. The building has a rectangular plan, though one corner was cut away to form the main entrance front on a different axis from the garden side.
The estate dates to the 13th century as Exbury Manor and passed through the Berkeley, Compton, and Mitford families over the centuries before Lionel de Rothschild bought it in 1919. During World War II the house was taken over by the Royal Navy and used as an operational headquarters, briefly shifting it away from private life.
The name Exbury comes from the village where the estate sits, on the edge of the Solent shore in Hampshire. The gardens that surround the house were shaped entirely by the Rothschild family and remain in their care today, making this a rare example of a private estate still managed by the same family line.
The house itself is private and not open to visitors, but the surrounding gardens open at certain times of the year and can be explored without entering the building. Opening times vary by season, so it is worth checking ahead before making the trip.
Despite being a Grade II* listed building, the house is rarely discussed as an architectural object because the gardens around it draw almost all attention. Visitors who come for the gardens often walk past the building without realizing it carries one of England's higher levels of legal protection for historic structures.
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