The Old Manor House

This is a late 15th-century guildhall, converted into a manor house around 1580, with alterations in the late 17th or early 18th century. The building is timber-framed and plastered, with a brick plinth and a red plain tiled roof. It features a late 16th-century ridge stack with four reduced octagonal shafts with moulded bases, and an additional capped stack on the east side relating to a 17th-century hearth. The building is two storeys high, with an inserted late 16th or early 17th-century attic floor, and a partial cellar to the east.

Originally, the building had four equal timber-framed bays, with jetties originally facing north (towards the former Red Lion square), and a false jetty to the west on the rebuilt late 16th-century gable. Decorative brackets are found on the corner post, and at each bay, with remnants of carved pilasters at each post. The entrance is in the second bay from the west, featuring a late 16th-century chamfered door frame built alongside a fragment of the original door head. A boarded door is present. There are three first-floor and three ground-floor casement windows of varying sizes, with some in original openings containing internal shutter grooves or rebates. Three early windows are notable including one with moulded mullions, one with diamond mullions and a 15th-century window incorporated into the gable.

Internally, the building was originally unheated, with a four-bay first-floor hall. This space contains three crown post trusses with octagonal crown posts, moulded caps and bases, on hollow-chamfered cambered tie beams with curved braces. The central truss was altered in the late 16th century to accommodate a partition, and an inserted stack and newel staircase. A central ground-floor room exhibits double ogee-moulded cross beams. A large inserted stack with a Renaissance red brick pedimented hearth is in a room to the east, thought to have been originally plastered. This room also includes a large open hearth with a chamfered mantel beam, two brick niches, and two round-headed niches above. Some 16th-century boarded doors and original hinges remain. The roof has a late 17th-century side purlin reconstruction. Notable wall paintings, identified by Rouse, are present: late 16th-century monochrome grey Italian Renaissance designs in the central room and a first-floor room to the east; and 18th-century polychrome paintings in the east ground-floor room, with former paintings in the west room. The guildhall, formerly part of the manor of Hinxton, owned by the De Veres in 1485, then belonging to Earl’s Colne Priory (Essex) in 1494, was later regranted to the De Veres and sold in 1597 to John Machell and Sir James Deane's brother. These individuals were possibly responsible for the alterations. A manor court was held in the courtyard by around 1600, following the conversion.