The present building, inspired by Italian baroque palaces, was erected after a fire in 1850 by architect Horace Jones who much later also designed London's Tower Bridge. Its then owner William Crawshay II, an ironmaster nicknamed the 'Iron King', had the house rebuilt over an iron frame, an early example for this technique. Jones inserted his seven bay block between two colonnades of 1840 by John Thistlewood Crew (called J. T. Crews by Pevsner and English Heritage) which apparently survived the fire.