Lord'S Manor

Lord's Manor, No. 2

House. Mid-19th century. Timber framed, roughcast rendered on brick plinth. Tiled roofs. Plan of two contemporary, parallel and adjoining ranges. Two storeys. Three-window range of cross-frame casements. Central doorway in gabled porch, brick with four-centred outer arch. The inner archway is also four-centred and the head of the arch is late 16th or early 17th century, reset. The arch is moulded and the spandrels are carved, one with a collared lion sitting. The door is of similar date, six panels with cover strips and original iron fittings including the iron knocker in the form of a closed hand.

Inside, two ground floor rooms contain particularly fine 16th and early 17th century overmantels and beams reset from another house, possibly the manor house on the site which was owned and enlarged by John Layer (d.1641), the antiquarian.

One room has a fine early 16th century ceiling of deeply hollow and roll moulded joists and main beams. One end of the main beam is continued into the wall as a post, the moulding also continuous. The outer end terminates in a corbel finely carved with naturalistic foliage and a tripping cockerel. This may refer to Bishop Alcock, Bishop of Ely in the late 15th century, or may reference Christ's College, Cambridge. The overmantel is early 17th century and in three bays divided by paired Doric columns with entablature of strapwork frieze and dentil cornice on enriched brackets. Below, the modern hearth is flanked by strapwork pilasters. The room is lined with early 17th century square sunk panelling.

Another ground floor room has an overmantel, also early 17th century. The mantelpiece is carried on four pairs of rustic Atlantes and caryatids with panels of naturalistic foliage between. The overmantel is in three rectangular bays divided by paired Doric columns, the outer bays have round-headed blind arcading and the centre bay a raised square panel with central carved boss and raised border of gadrooning and foliate ornament. The entablature to the overmantel has frieze of jewelled ornament and enriched brackets supporting a modillion cornice.