This is the largest and most complex of the four timber-framed cottages designed or altered by the architect George Devey along the banks of the River Thames on the Cliveden estate. The first structure on the site was a Gothic-style summerhouse with an octagonal vaulted plaster ceiling designed in 1813 by architect Peter Nicholson for Mary, 4th Countess of Orkney. She was living in one wing of the burnt down mansion at the time of the commission. It was used as a tea house and spa for the many visitors attracted to the nearby mineral springs, which flowed from the chalk cliff above and ran down into the Thames. Nicholson published his designs for the house in his "Architectural Dictionary" of 1813 in the form of a cross-section of the interior and ceiling projection. In auction particulars dated 1821, which list all structures on the estate, the building is described as a Banqueting house "at the much admired spring", while several decades later it was described as an "ornamental fishing villa."