Alveston Manor Hotel

The Alveston Manor Hotel is a timber-frame house, enlarged over several centuries, dating from approximately 1500, with significant additions from the 16th, 17th, 18th centuries and restoration work in the 19th century, alongside 20th-century alterations. The construction is timber-frame with brick infill, featuring decorative brick and tilework and some stucco to the rear. The roof is tiled, with brick stacks.

The original structure comprised three gabled bays, with one projecting to the left, flanked by later wings – one from the 16th century and the other late 17th century. Further wings were added in the 18th century, with the wing on the right-hand side being projecting. A mid to late 20th-century glazed flat-roofed porch provides access to the left of centre, with a similar entrance at the right end. Late 20th-century casement windows, with leaded glazing replacing earlier sashes, are now in place; a central first-floor Venetian window also has leaded glazing. Two 16th-century axial stacks retain square shafts incorporating fillets, cornices, close studding, and middle rails, along with one 17th-century stack.

The rear elevation has a stuccoed three-gable centre, with two gables to the left and a two-storey hipped bay window at the end. The centre features a Venetian window and bargeboards with scrollwork, a vine trail, and fretwork. A large 20th-century single-storey flat-roofed addition and corridor extend to the right.

Inside, the entrance hall features 17th-century panelling and chamfered beams, while the staircase has square newels with finials and splat balusters. The main hall retains linenfold panelling, with nine panels of 16th-century linenfold recorded by the Victoria County History. There's a fireplace with a stop-chamfered ovolo-moulded bressumer and 19th-century Delft tiles, with an overmantel displaying ten early Renaissance-style panels featuring high relief heads in roundels, mirrored on two doors. Paired doors to the rear have linenfold panels, and a staircase with moulded square newels and finials and splat balusters is situated to the right. One room at the right end displays 17th-century panelling, a top cornice, an embroidered frieze, a coffered ceiling, a large stone fireplace with an armorial bearing, and a two-fielded-panel door. A rear passage reveals exposed timber framing, and numerous late 19th-century panels document the house’s history.

Local tradition suggests the house occupies the site of an anchorite cell dating back to approximately 960 AD, and that the first performance of Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' reputedly occurred beneath a large cedar tree at the rear of the property.