Sayesbury Manor Council Offices

BELL STREET 1. 5253 (South Side) Sayesbury Manor council offices TL 4823 1477:3/29 II 2. Circa 1780, possibly earlier house remodelled. Early C19, 1-bay extension to W and extensive outbuildings to N. Set back beyond car park and originally facing S. Carpenter's Gothic 2 storey timberframed and stuccoed house with steep hipped roof now slated. Originally symmetrical 7-window S front with gable chimneys, extended 1 bay to W in matching style. Flush box sashes to 1st floor with 6/6 panes and label dripmoulds rising to blunt point in centre. Uniform French windows to Gd floor are later. Flat soffit to eaves overhang has alternately lion masks biting rings and smaller lion masks. Early C19,6 panel central flush door with reeded mouldings around panels. C18 decorative wooden Gothic porch with flat top. 2 free- standing columns and 2 half columns at wall and full entablature. Columns consist of 4 clustered colonnets with annulets projecting. Frieze of sunk trefoils, tongued brackets, and a coved and arched cornice. Pattern derived from Batty Langley's Gothic Architecture Restored and Improved of 1741. Central stair with rooms each side. Rear half has lower 1st floor under continuation of main roof with staircase expressed as a higher gabled central feature on N. Columned porch on N probably added when this became entrance front. Interior much altered. Panelled room at SE of Gd floor may be original. Stair balustrade altered. A range of lower stuccoed timberframed buildings with slate roofs runs N from the NE part of the house, described in the deeds as domestic offices, archway, harness room, and stable, this with its axis parallel with the house. Known as Roselands in the C19, the name was changed to Hatters Croft in 1902 and to Sayesbury Manor in 1939 (EHDC Deeds). The Gothic porch is the most elaborate example of 4 in the town.

Listing NGR: TL4823414776