Eggington House is the manor house

Manor house

A manor house is a country house that historically formed the administrative centre of a manor, the lowest unit of territorial organisation in the feudal system in Europe. The term is applied to country houses that belonged to the gentry and other grand stately homes...

 of the village of Eggington

Eggington

Egginton – or Eggington as it is now known – is a village and civil parish in the Central Bedfordshire district of Bedfordshire, England, about three miles east of Leighton Buzzard. Apart from the village itself, the parish also includes the hamlet of Briggington on the road to Leighton Buzzard,...

 situated near Leighton Buzzard

Leighton Buzzard

-Lower schools:*Beaudesert Lower School - Apennine Way*Clipstone Brook Lower School - Brooklands Drive*Greenleas Lower School - Derwent Road*Dovery Down Lower School - Heath Road*Heathwood Lower School - Heath Road*Leedon Lower School - Highfield Road...

, Bedfordshire

Bedfordshire

Bedfordshire is a ceremonial county of historic origin in England that forms part of the East of England region.It borders Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Northamptonshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the west and Hertfordshire to the south-east....

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. The house is regarded as a very fine example of late 17th century domestic architecture, and is a Grade II* listed building. At the time of its construction in 1696 it was completely up to date and innovative in its design - which was unusual in the provinces, where architectural styles usually lagged behind that of the larger cities.

This small mansion

Mansion

A mansion is a very large dwelling house. U.S. real estate brokers define a mansion as a dwelling of over . A traditional European mansion was defined as a house which contained a ballroom and tens of bedrooms...

, built for a Huguenot

Huguenot

The Huguenots were members of the Protestant Reformed Church of France during the 16th and 17th centuries. Since the 17th century, people who formerly would have been called Huguenots have instead simply been called French Protestants, a title suggested by their German co-religionists, the...

 from Montauban

Montauban

Montauban is a commune in the Tarn-et-Garonne department in the Midi-Pyrénées region in southern France. It is the capital of the department and lies north of Toulouse....

 in France, a Merchant taylor

Worshipful Company of Merchant Taylors

The Worshipful Company of Merchant Taylors is one of the 108 Livery Companies of the City of London.The Company, originally known as the Guild and Fraternity of St...

 John Renouille who became Sheriff

Sheriff

A sheriff is in principle a legal official with responsibility for a county. In practice, the specific combination of legal, political, and ceremonial duties of a sheriff varies greatly from country to country....

 of Bedfordshire. The house is of red brick

Brick

A brick is a block of ceramic material used in masonry construction, usually laid using various kinds of mortar. It has been regarded as one of the longest lasting and strongest building materials used throughout history.-History:...

. The main facade

Facade

A facade or façade is generally one exterior side of a building, usually, but not always, the front. The word comes from the French language, literally meaning "frontage" or "face"....

 is of seven bays of classical

Classical architecture

Classical architecture is a mode of architecture employing vocabulary derived in part from the Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, enriched by classicizing architectural practice in Europe since the Renaissance...

 sash window

Sash window

A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels or "sashes" that form a frame to hold panes of glass, which are often separated from other panes by narrow muntins...

s and three storey

Storey

A storey or story is any level part of a building that could be used by people...

s high. The roof line is concealed by a panel

Wall panel

A wall panel is single piece of material, usually flat and cut into a rectangular shape, that serves as the visible and exposed covering for a wall. Wall panels are functional as well as decorative, providing insulation and soundproofing, combined with uniformity of appearance, along with some...

led parapet

Parapet

A parapet is a wall-like barrier at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony or other structure. Where extending above a roof, it may simply be the portion of an exterior wall that continues above the line of the roof surface, or may be a continuation of a vertical feature beneath the roof such as a...

 decorated with urn

Urn

An urn is a vase, ordinarily covered, that usually has a narrowed neck above a footed pedestal. "Knife urns" placed on pedestals flanking a dining-room sideboard were an English innovation for high-style dining rooms of the late 1760s...

s. The interior contains a staircase with twisted baluster

Baluster

A baluster is a moulded shaft, square or of lathe-turned form, one of various forms of spindle in woodwork, made of stone or wood and sometimes of metal, standing on a unifying footing, and supporting the coping of a parapet or the handrail of a staircase. Multiplied in this way, they form a...

s.

The house has had a varied ownership, the Renouille family anglicised their name to Reynal moved to nearby Hockliffe

Hockliffe

Hockliffe is a village and civil parish in Bedfordshire on the crossroads of the A5 road which lies upon the course of the roman road known as Watling Street and the A4012 road.It is about four miles east of Leighton Buzzard...

 Grange and let Eggington. The last of the Reynal's predeceased his wife, who remarried which caused to the property to pass to her new husband named Francis Moore. By 1840 Eggington House belonged to a family called Adams. Later, circa 1900, it belonged to a family called Hodgson who frequently entertained the suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst

Sylvia Pankhurst

Estelle Sylvia Pankhurst was an English campaigner for the suffragist movement in the United Kingdom. She was for a time a prominent left communist who then devoted herself to the cause of anti-fascism.-Early life:...

. During World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 the house was requisitioned by the Army. From 1950 to 1976 it was the home of Sir Gilbert Inglefield, the 1967 Lord Mayor of London

Lord Mayor of London

The Right Honourable Lord Mayor of London is the legal title for the Mayor of the City of London Corporation. The Lord Mayor of London is to be distinguished from the Mayor of London; the former is an officer only of the City of London, while the Mayor of London is the Mayor of Greater London and...

, and his wife. It was then the residence of Lord Slynn and his wife.

Today, the house remains in private ownership.