Manor House, Including Cottage, And Walls Attached To Rear And Front

Manor House, including Cottage, and Walls attached to Rear and Front

This house on the south side of Front Street in Ferryhill was probably originally a long house, dating from the late 16th or early 17th century with later alterations in the 17th and 19th centuries. It was occupied by the Arrowsmiths in 1834 and by the Shaws before them.

The building has painted render with painted ashlar dressings, and a plinth that is partly boulder and partly sandstone block. The roof is laid with pantiles and features stone gable copings and brick-banded rendered chimneys. The house is L-shaped in plan, consisting of 2 storeys arranged across 7 bays. Originally a 4-bay house was separated by a passage from a lower down-house of 2 bays; the down-house was raised in the 17th century, and windows and stairs were altered in the 19th century.

The front elevation shows a glazed door in the third bay set within a chamfered, flat-Tudor-arched surround. The ground floor features long paired sashes in the first two bays, with 2 wider sashes positioned above these and the door, and slightly shorter sashes grouped 2:1:1 in the right section, all with late 19th-century glazing and projecting stone sills. The plinth extends only to the right of the door, with blocks appearing in 2 bays to its right and rough boulders beyond, interrupted by a grated opening. The roof displays raised gable copings with curved kneelers at the front, which fade into stepped stacks with old brick bands.

The long rear wing contains a full-height extruded porch set within the angle of the L-plan, housing a boarded door. The Cottage door at the rear of the wing has a Gothic glazing bar overlight and is flanked by a 2-centred-arched window in the wing beside the porch. Other windows vary in style: a tripartite sash sits to the left of the Cottage door, and a late 19th-century 16-pane sash appears to its left, beside the Gothic window. The Cottage's first floor is lit by a sash positioned in the rear gable peak. The right return displays a first-floor stair extension added around 1800, featuring Gothic glazing bars and supported on a single corner post. Below this sits an early 18th-century floating cornice positioned over a window in the rear wall of the main range. A first-floor horizontal sliding sash in the wing is painted to appear Gothic. An early 18th-century sundial is set into the left wall of the rear wing. A small extension occupies the right return of the main block.

Interior: A chamfered Tudor-arched stone-surround doorway from the cross-passage leads to the original house, which contains a wide ground-floor beam with stop-chamfered joists. The room to the left of the passage has a similar beam and joists, with c.1700 raised fielded panelling, probably re-used, and a cupboard featuring a keyed round head without architrave and shaped shelves. One panel is hinged with butterfly hinges to reveal access to a blocked stone-mullioned 2-light window, obscured by render on the outer face. A circa 1800 stair in the rear extension provides access to first-floor passages. The late 17th-century stair between the two right end bays has a ground-floor lobby, now with a blocked door and inserted window, featuring deep bolection mouldings to doors leading to rooms. An open-well stair has been removed from the ground floor. The upper flight, reached from the room to the left, displays a wide handrail with sloping sides resting on fat skittle balusters, and a closed string. First-floor 2-panel doors in the original house have richly-moulded central rails and bolection-moulded surrounds. Blocked chamfered rectangular stone windows appear in the end and intermediate gables. The roof of the main house contains 4 collared, halved-principal trusses. The raised roof of the down-house features 2 upper crucks with collars and saddles, both with purlins resting on extended collars and saddle. The rear wing has long upper crucks in the part nearest the house, with collared trusses and intermediate rafters; the rear part of the wing was not inspected.

A garden wall attached at the right front features a ramped flat stone coping and contains an empty gateway with keyed round head, extending approximately 5 metres along the right side of the garden. A wall attached to the rear wing has round coping and links the corner of the wing to the wall of the rear courtyard. The high courtyard wall features flat stone coping.