Chells Manor

Manor house, now house and office. Built in the late 14th or early 15th century for the Wake family, with wings added to the heightened open hall house in the 16th and 17th centuries. The building was altered in the 19th and 20th centuries.

The structure features timber frame on red brick sill. The front (south) and west sides are rendered with roughcast, while the frame is exposed at the rear and east with large square panels. The roofs are steeply pitched with old red tiles and red brick chimneys.

The building forms a large H-plan, presenting two storeys facing south. To the north of the west wing is a one-and-a-half storey 17th-century service wing, rendered with roughcast but having a 18th-century red and black brick north gable with a 19th-century projecting gable chimney. A cross-passage at the west end of the hall has an inserted chimney, possibly replacing a timber-framed hood dating to the late 19th century.

The east wing is three bays wide with a stair in the narrower middle bay. The double-jettied south gable is two storeys with a cellar, featuring heavy corner brackets and double roll moulding on the bressumer. The west crosswing, slightly later, is similarly proportioned without brackets or bressumer moulding and features a chamfered first-floor doorway into the upper floor. Ovolo-moulded mullioned windows blocked into the east side walls of the west wing date it to the early 17th century. A large entrance doorway in the east wall is blocked.

The two-bay service wing extending north features a tall diamond-mullioned west window (altered and part blocked) and was originally open to the roof. In the early 19th century, the entrance and passage were relocated to the east end of the hall, and the east wing was provided with a new stair and main entrance from the east. The south entrance was later returned to its original position, and one at the other end of the hall was blocked in the 20th century, with the passage thrown into the southeast room.

The imposing south front features gabled wings jettied at first-floor and attic levels, and a tall red brick panelled chimney rising through the front roof slope of the hall range near the west end. The west wing has one window to each floor and one above the door into the passage west of the chimney, with windows to the hall and chamber above. Three-light mullioned windows with leaded glazing and iron opening lights (two-light over porch) are flush with the wall. A single flush box sash window with 6/6 panes occupies the ground floor of the east wing to the left of a central 19th-century painted brick south gable chimney rising externally to disappear into the first-floor jetty. Four steps lead to a half-glazed panelled door under a steep gabled hood on heavy cut brackets.

The formal three-window east front has flush box sash windows with 8/8 panes and a six-panel central door offset to the north in a heavy frame with rectangular fanlight under a trellis porch with tented metal roof.

The rear elevation is U-shaped. An old 17th-century oak door to the cross-passage has ovolo-chamfered battens and a cut-in bullion light with a flat hood on shaped brackets. Casement and blocked windows feature in the wings, with two casement windows to each floor on the west.

The interior has brick paving in the cross-passage and in the cellar under the parlour at the southwest corner. A blocked doorway from the passage into the west stair bay now has a two-light ogee-moulded mullioned window with leaded glazing inserted. Two chamfered but unstopped axial beams support the hall floor. An early 20th-century Arts and Crafts inglenook in oak features pewter plaques amongst tiles in the fire surround. Similar artworkers' escutcheons and finger plates appear on doors elsewhere in the house. The exposed timberwork in the upper floor of the west wing appears as close studding with straight tension braces. Clasped-purlin roofs are present. A face-halved bladed scarf joint is visible in the east wallplate of the west wing. Two-panel doors with H hinges are located on the first floor. A massive tie-beam spans the hall (cut) just above the level of the window sill.