Manor Farmhouse

Manor Farmhouse

This is a Grade II* house of the 16th and 17th centuries, standing in a complex of moats. The 16th-century east wing and 17th-century west wing are built of brick with a pantile roof. The building is L-shaped in plan, comprising a 2 or 3-room west front with a 2-room east wing to the rear left, which represents part of an earlier south front. Late 19th-century extensions and alterations include a porch and additional structures to the left return, with entrances to the inner angle and rear gable end.

The west front is of 2 storeys with an attic, arranged in 5 bays. It has a chamfered ashlar-coped plinth. To the left of centre is a blocked segmental-arched doorway with an inserted 19th-century flush wooden cross-mullion window below it; to the right are 2 similar windows, with that in the 4th bay having a chamfered mullion and transom. A blocked segmental-arched window sits to the right end. A three-course brick first floor band with a central cogged course separates the storeys. The first floor contains 4 segmental-arched windows: blocked to the 1st bay with a 3-sliding sash inserted below; a 2-light casement to the 2nd bay; a 3-light sliding sash to the 3rd bay; blocked to the 4th bay with a 3-light sliding sash inserted between bays 3 and 4; and a narrow segmental-arched blind panel to the right end. All windows, except the ground floor window to the 3rd bay, have leaded panes. Above the first floor to bays 1 and 2 is a stepped and corbelled brick eaves cornice with cavetto and ovolo-moulded bricks; a cogged brick eaves cornice runs to the right. The gables are brick coped and tumbled. A brick stack sits to the right of centre; a 19th or 20th-century rebuilt end stack stands to the right.

The right return displays a similar first floor band, 2 first floor casements (that to the right with leaded lights), a double-course brick second floor band with a dentilled lower course, and a 2-light attic sliding sash.

The south front's west range has a 6-panel door to the angle under a 19th-century lean-to porch, 2 cross-mullion ground floor windows, a first floor band, two 3-light sliding sashes, and a cogged eaves cornice similar to the west front. The east wing has 3 similar cross-mullion windows to each floor; those on the ground floor sit beneath original brick dripmouls. The first floor panel to the left contains 3 stone tablets engraved with shields, set in brick niches with moulded shafts, chamfered capitals and abaci, and moulded brick rounded-trefoil cusped arches with carved decoration in the spandrels. A similar panel to the right has 2 stone tablets and rendered infill to the right, but features no moulded arches. A similar single panel section, flanked by columns and with a decorated trefoiled head, is re-set as a side window in a 19th-century Gothic-style gabled porch to the right gable end; another trefoiled head is incorporated in the opposite side window. Two massive lateral stacks to the rear, formerly with ornate shafts, now have 20th-century top sections.

Interior

The east wing contains moulded ceiling beams. The inner room features fine linen-fold panelling and overdoors carved with figures and grotesque heads, together with fielded-panel doors and window shutters. The interior was not fully inspected at the time of survey.

An important early brick manor house, the building was partly disused and in decay at the time of re-survey.