The Old Manor House

The Old Manor House is a house dating from the mid-16th century, incorporating an earlier timber-framed building and with alterations and additions from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. It is constructed of timber framing with plastered infill and later brick nogging, red brick (painted), and dressed limestone with limestone rubble. The roofs are thatched. The house has two storeys, an attic, and a cellar, arranged in an L-shape. The main east-west range has a jettied attic floor with three nearly equal timber-framed bays. This range was extended in the late 17th or 18th century to the east by one bay and joined to an earlier building to the south, forming a south wing, which was also extended to the south with a large gable end stack. A lean-to and cellar were added in the 18th century to the north-west (other lean-tos to the north have since been demolished). The west elevation features a gable with exposed close-studded timber framing and ogee braces, with jetty brackets to the former attic jetty. Part of the ground floor timber framing has been removed for a recessed porch with a panelled door on the right-hand side, and a red brick outshut is on the left. There is an internal stack and a main stack to the rear. The south wing shows the different building periods clearly through its exposed timber framing, including red brick to the gable end. The fenestration includes two ground floor canted hung sash bay windows, a small fixed light window, and two sixteen-paned hung sash windows, similar to the two first-floor windows. There is also one nine-paned hung sash window and one six-paned hung sash window. The interior of the main range originally comprised a two-bay hall and a hall chamber, with single-bay rooms at each floor level to the west. A large limestone chimney stack, possibly inserted and dated 1629 to a similar structure (Springhill Farmhouse, Molesworth), is present. The ceiling features stop-chamfered beams, similar to those in The Gables and Yew Tree Cottage, Brington. The roof structure includes wind braces to each bay, braced collar beams to side purlins at each truss with yokes and a ridge piece, and plaster torches between rafters of light scantling. An early 17th-century hearth features dressed limestone with plain chamfered quoins and a mantel beam, incorporating an inglenook with a pointed arched head, a niche, and an inserted baking oven. The south wing also has a mantel beam to its hearth.