The Vyne is a Grade I listed 16th-century country house in the parish of Sherborne St John, near Basingstoke, in Hampshire, England. The house was first built circa 1500–10 in the Tudor style by William Sandys, 1st Baron Sandys, Lord Chamberlain to King Henry VIII. In the 17th century it was transformed to resemble a classical mansion. Today, although much reduced in size, the house retains its Tudor chapel, with contemporary stained glass. The classical portico on the north front was added in 1654 to the design of John Webb, a pupil of Inigo Jones, and is notable as the first portico in English domestic architecture.
In the mid-18th century the house belonged to John Chaloner Chute, a close friend of the architectural pioneer Horace Walpole, who designed the principal stair hall containing an imperial staircase the grand scale of which belies its true small size. In 1958 The Vyne was bequeathed by Charles Chute to the National Trust.
Nomenclature
The Vyne stands on the site of a medieval manor house of the same name. The origins of the name, earliest preserved on a document dated 1268, are uncertain; one theory suggests that it refers to Vindomis, a Roman road station, whilst another that it was the site of the first domestically grown vines in England. In its early history the house and its precincts were often referred to as "The Vyne Green", possibly because the small manor house, its detached chapel and assorted outbuildings were arranged around a square, much like a village green. This assortment of buildings was gradually linked to form one large dwelling, the origins of the present house.
History
In the fourteenth century the house then on the site was the manor house of Sherborne Cowdray, held by the Fyffhide family. Following the death of Sir William Fyffhide the manor was leased to Gregory of Basingstoke until 1370, when the house was described as comprising "a hall, adjoining chambers and the grange and chapel at the house."
In 1386 the manor passed by marriage into the Sandys family; in 1420, again by marriage, it passed to the Brocas family, and in 1488 returned to Sandys, the family most closely associated with the early history of the mansion. The Sandys family rose to prominence during the reign of King Henry VIII, and was founded by William Sandys, 1st Baron Sandys, a royal servant and courtier, who served as Lord Chamberlain from 1526 until his death in 1540. He transformed the medieval manor house into a vast mansion befitting his exalted rank. Successive generations of the Sandys family held the manor. William Sandys, 3rd Baron Sandys (d. 1623) entertained Queen Elizabeth I at the house twice, in 1569 and 1601. Having joined the insurrection of the Earl of Essex he was imprisoned and fined £5,000, when the house passed temporarily into the hands of the crown. Although the house was restored to the Sandys family, their fortunes entered decline and no member was to hold high office again. During the Civil War the house was the residence of the Cavalier Colonel Henry Sandys and following the fall of nearby Basing House, a Royalist stronghold, the Vyne was occupied by Parliamentarians. Colonel Sandys died of his wounds following the Battle of Cheriton and nine years later, in 1653, his son sold The Vyne to Chaloner Chute, a lawyer.
The Chute family
The Chute family were to own The Vyne from 1653 until the mid twentieth century, and it is they who are largely responsible for the house as it appears today. The Vyne's purchaser, Challoner Chute, chosen Speaker of the House of Commons on 27 Jan 1659, instigated at The Vyne a program of demolition and rebuilding, sweeping away much of the Sandys' great Tudor mansion and transforming what remained into a smaller classical house. At first glance, Chute's chosen style resembles Palladianism; a form of architecture which had briefly been popular on England before the Civil War, but following the cessation of the war had been dismissed as Royalist architecture. Indeed, Inigo Jones who had introduced the style to the English court had been captured at the fall of nearby Basing House, and taken prisoner, naked and humiliated, from the house as it was looted. So it is surprising that Chute, a prominent Parliamentarian, chose to rebuild his house in an unfashionable style, but also chose as his architect, John Webb, a former pupil of Jones.