Baldwin Manor

Baldwin Manor is a timber-framed manor house dating to around 1500, situated on the west side of High Street in Swaffham Prior. The building was extended by one bay to the south in the early-to-mid 16th century and again in the 17th century by the addition of a kitchen wing at the rear. The parlour of the original house was demolished before 1815.

The main structure is timber-framed and exposed, raised on a brick plinth, with a plain tiled roof hipped to the south west. The original chimney stack at the north east gable end, constructed of red brick with some clunch, would have been internal. In plan, the house originally comprised a single range of four or five bays, now reduced to three bays. The building stands two storeys high.

The first floor is jettied, carried on joists laid flat and shaped jetty brackets, with embattled pilasters now mostly mutilated. The jetty beam itself is decorated with carved leaf ornament. The brackets flanking the doorway to the cross-passage and the spandrels of the four-centred arch to the doorway are carved with heraldic devices of the Baldwin family. The fenestration is largely of later date, probably late 17th or early 18th century, comprising cross-frame casements at ground floor with much original glass surviving. However, the original sills to the circa 1500 windows are preserved at first floor level. The rear wall contains two 16th-century windows: one with four ogee lights and pierced trefoil tracery to its heads, and another of seven lights with hollow moulded mullions.

The early-to-mid 16th-century addition is timber-framed with a jettied first floor similar to the original house. It features a moulded jetty beam carried on shaped brackets with embattled pilasters, now mutilated, and an embattled jetty plate. Curved or cranked downward bracing descends from the posts to the jetty beam. The 17th-century kitchen bay adjoins this addition at the rear, timber-framed and plain tiled with a large red brick stack at its junction with the principal range. This wing is of one storey and attic height.

Internally, the plan of the original house remains largely intact despite the loss of the parlour. The hall occupies two bays with a cross-passage at the low end. The screens wall survives, though a staircase has been inserted into the cross-passage. Original mortices for a partition wall between the buttery and pantry are visible in the service bay. The hall ceiling is quartered with double ogee moulding to the main beams and principal posts. The cambered bressummer over the inglenook hearth features a rose boss at its centre and foliate ornament on either side. A doorway to the right of the hearth, with a four-centred arch in a square head and spandrels carved with foliate ornament (part mutilated), possibly led to a staircase to the chamber above the hall.

At first floor, the chamber over the hall has cambered and chamfered tie-beams with arch bracing. Two original windows in this room retain some of their original diamond mullions. The crown-post roof remains intact with bracing only to the collar purlin and shows no smoke blackening. The early-to-mid 16th-century addition features stop-chamfered main beams.

The house stands on a former moated site and is known to have been associated with the Baldwin family from the 13th century. Baldwin Manor is particularly noteworthy for its mouldings and carved details connected with the heraldic devices of the Baldwin family.