The Bishop'S Manor

The Bishop's Manor is a hall of the manor of the Bishops of Durham, dating to 1388-1405, with earlier fabric and alterations in the 16th, 18th, and 20th centuries. It was built for Bishop Skirlaugh. The building is constructed of magnesian limestone ashlar and rubble, with brick and a Welsh slate roof. Originally an open hall and screens passage with a north-west entrance porch, it is now subdivided into rooms with an inserted first floor.

The north facade has two storeys and seven first-floor windows. A porch projects to the right. A blind bay in brick is on the left side. Moulded plinth runs along all bays. The entrance doorway features a six-panel door under a divided overlight with bracketed cornices, and a 16-pane sash window to the left. Further sashes with glazing bars are present throughout. There is a first-floor band and a band above the first-floor windows. A hipped roof is topped by a ridge stack and stacks rising through the side pitches. The porch has a stepped, chamfered plinth and a wide round archway with a flat-headed, two-light, cinque-cusped window above. An embattled parapet surmounts the porch, featuring a central niche with a pair of dogs and a figure holding a shield.

The west facade shows a tripartite sash with glazing bars to the left and five blocked arched openings representing the former screens passage to the right. First-floor sashes have glazing bars, and small Yorkshire sashes are in the attic. The south facade has a 20th-century door in a medieval pointed doorway with two moulded orders. Further 6-panel doors and sashes with glazing bars are present, except for a 16-pane sash in the fourth bay. The east facade reveals the position of a brick fireplace on the left of the first floor, with a blocked window to the right.

Inside, a rubble-built hall of an earlier date is visible in the east wall, alongside a tall blocked arch of uncertain function and the stone foundations of a bench, likely the dais at the high end of the hall. Skirlaugh’s work includes the porch with its embossed quadripartite vaulting, the axial doorway at the south end of the screens passage, the inserted doorway on the north wall of the north-east room (formerly leading to a staircase tower), and the tall windows whose jambs and springers are visible in the south wall. The floor levels date to the 16th century. The current window positions are of 18th-century design, although they are replacements. Several Georgian and Victorian fireplaces remain. The closed-string, turned baluster staircase is largely a replica, because the original 17th-century staircase was destroyed by fire.