Lordship Farmhouse

MELBOURN HIGH STREET TL 34 NE (North side) 7/153 No. 12 (Lordship Farmhouse) GV II

Manor house. Of three principal building periods. C14-C15, 1699 and C18-C19. Timber framed, plaster rendered and part stuccoed and incised in imitation of stone ashlar. Tiled, steeply pitched roofs now covered with asbestos slate. One large stack between the medieval range and the C18 part, and another side stack to the rear of the 1699 part. Present plan is irregular and is formed of two parallel and adjoining ranges with the gable ends towards the road. The right hand range is of six bays and the left hand range of three bays. Two storeys. Principal front now faces the garden. Three early C19 window openings at first floor including one tripartite hung sash. Two similar windows flanking doorway with early C19 doorcase and hood. Inside: The three bays of a parlour crosswing of a medieval house remain intact in the range to the north. The bays are complete with original gable end walls visible in the roof. The roof has been rebuilt mid C20 but the principal trusses remain. Roof is of butt purlin construction. The mortices for the purlins are now vacant. The tie beams are cambered, the posts are jowled and principal rafters are halved and pegged at the apex. No evidence of a crown post roof or of bracing to the tie beams was visible. The parlour crosswing was of two storeys. There are arch braces to the main beam in the ceiling of the ground floor room. The first floor room would have been open to the roof. The roof timbers are chamfered and there is evidence for a window in the gable end to the road. The smoke blackening in the roof is associated with a fire. Three bays were added to the end of this range in 1699. They are also timber framed. The framing has straight wall bracing and staggered studwork. There is a large inglenook to the kitchen and this appears to have been extended when the C18 part was added or rebuilt. This later wing, which forms the second of the two parallel, adjoining ranges is also framed, though the framing is not visible internally. It is cellared and of two storeys. The internal detail of this part of the house is mostly of early mid C19, and similar in period to the fenestration. The house is on a moated site. Three bays in the north range remain of the medieval manor house of the Argentine family. The date 1699 to the gable end of the north range may indicate the date of the additions at the rear and suggest a rebuilding. It was sold c.1703 to Richard Hitch.

V.C.H. Cambs. Vol. VIII p.71 W.M. Palmer: Proc. C.A.S. XXVIII, p.46,49 R.C.H.M.: Record Card (1949)

Listing NGR: TL3846045041