Welton Manor

Welton Manor is a house with associated estate buildings, constructed around 1860, exhibiting a combination of Classical and Gothic Revival architectural styles. The main house is constructed of yellow brick in English bond, featuring a decorative brick eaves cornice and red brick banding. It has timber, hornless sash windows with margin glazing, set within stone surrounds – Caernarvon arches to the principal elevations and flat arches to the service range. The hipped roofs are covered in slate tiles with clay ridge tiles, and tall brick chimneys rise with dentilled cornices and clay pots.

The house is roughly ‘L’ shaped and two stories high, with a double-pile layout. The main rooms are arranged to the south-east of an axial corridor extending from the entrance hall, which turns at a right angle to connect with the service range, which has a cellar beneath.

The south-east elevation, the principal façade, features a central three-bay section flanked by full-height projecting bays with two-story canted bay windows and conical roofs. The south-west elevation, the entrance façade, incorporates a single-story porch with a stone parapet and three-panel double doors under a large transom window. The rear (north-west) elevation displays a Venetian window and two additional bays to the left, each having sash windows on both floors. The service range projects to the north-west, abutting the rear elevation.

The entrance hall features an extensive geometric tiled floor, with encaustic tiles outlining the perimeter and three blue and white tiles displaying the initials and coat of arms of John and Elizabeth Vessey at its center. An open-well oak staircase has square newel posts with finials and pendants, a curtail step, and a balustrade decorated with pierced quatrefoils and braces. A stone-arched fireplace includes quatrefoils and tiled inserts. The interior retains many original fireplaces, decorative cornices, ornate ceiling roses, and joinery including panelled doors and window shutters. At least one room contains a bell push beside the fireplace.

Immediately opposite the north-west elevation of the service range, across a walled courtyard, is a single-story, four-bay range. To the north-east stands the two-story former groom’s cottage. Both are built of yellow brick with dentilled cornices and red brick cambered arches above timber plank doors and casement windows, and have slate roofs. Further to the north-west are the remains of a walled courtyard, including a single-story coach house with timber doors and a stable block with a central round arched entrance flanked by a pair of double doors and a window, with a ridge stack to the left of the archway. These buildings are also constructed of yellow brick with clay tile roofs.