Northwold Manor

Northwold Manor is a manor house constructed in phases with fabric dating from the 16th to 19th centuries and with some 21st-century additions.

The building materials include red brick, flint, and some stone rubble walling. The roofs are covered in a variety of materials, including pantiles, plain tiles and Welsh slate.

The plan has been largely unaltered since the Regency period. It does not conform to a single overarching category of plan form, but one characteristic feature is the use of interconnecting rooms rather than corridors.

The principal elevation faces north along the High Street and is around 60 metres in length. At the left-hand side, the east end, there is a broad gateway with brick piers and curving walls of brick and flint rubble.

Moving to the right, it adjoins a three-bay cottage with a pitched roof covered in glazed pantiles with end-stacks rising from gabled brick walls. The front wall of the cottage has coursed brick and flint rubble with some galletting, and a cogged brick cornice. There are three 21st-century timber casement windows with leaded lights at first floor, and at ground floor there are two similar casements and an oak-boarded door. The plinth changes character where it meets the gable ends, indicating a change in the phase of building and the possible in-fill of an originally open-sided range.

To the right of the cottage is an in-fill building of 1847 to 1850, originally a dairy. It is built of red brick laid in Flemish bond and has a single window beneath a gauged brick lintel. The pediment was newly constructed after 2014.

At the centre of the north elevation is the 17th-century manor house. It is set back from the street behind railings installed around 1814. It is five bays wide, two storeys high with attics, and its pitched roof is covered in plain tiles. The ogee gable at the left-hand side terminates in a chimney stack. A plat band runs across the Flemish bond brickwork of the street front at first floor level. There are four windows at ground floor, five at the first floor, and three within roof dormers. All are timber framed sashes with exposed boxes and thin glazing bars. Those on the principal floors have gauged brick lintels. At the centre of the ground floor is a classically detailed doorcase with fluted jambs and consoles supporting a Corinthian modillion cornice. The six-panelled door is hung beneath a glazed fanlight, the vanes and all the details of which are carved from a single piece of oak and have not been joined together.

To the right, the west, is the 1814 extension to the manor house. This two-storey red brick structure has pitched roofs covered in Welsh slate and is three bays wide. The porch tower steps forward to the street. At ground floor it has a moulded limestone archway within a gauged brick surround. It is flanked by fluted Doric columns. Recessed within panelled jambs is a six-panelled door beneath a segmental fanlight of leaded glass. At first floor is a single timber sash window with narrow glazing bars and an exposed sash box, set back within a segmental arch. A narrow plat band transforms the gable into a pediment, within which a plaque reads AD 1814 in relief. The two bays to the right have identical openings at ground and first floor for pairs of windows beneath gauged brick arches; those at ground floor level are blocked. At first floor there are large timber sash windows with narrow glazing bars and concealed sash boxes.

At the western end of the building is a two-bay structure of red brick laid in Flemish bond. Originally a single storey orangery, it retains 1814 fabric at ground floor where there are two timber sash windows with concealed boxes. At first floor the Flemish bond brickwork is all post-2014, including the two blocked windows, the parapet and the pinecone finials.

The visible parts of the west elevation, above the pantiled roof at first floor level, are all post-2014 and include arched sash windows, and a pedimented treatment of the attic wall.

The rear elevations on the south side of the building are equally varied. At the left-hand side, the west end, is the 2014 two-storey extension to the former orangery. It has a pedimented gable and gothick windows on each storey. At the south-east corner is a three-storey octagonal stair-tower, called Warwick's Folly, rising to a prospect chamber with a conical roof. It has a clock on its eastern face dated 2016.

The south face of the 1814 phase has two forward bays of red brick with two large sash windows with concealed boxes at each floor, and one set-back bay in gault brick with a single sash window at first floor. Attached to the gault brick bay at ground level is a post-2014 crenelated extension with a glazed door. The roofs are covered in Cumberland slate.

The rear of the 17th-century manor house has a single bay at the left hand side, with 21st-century French doors at ground floor and a sash window at first floor with exposed boxes and chunky ovolo glazing bars. The roof is covered in unglazed pantiles. The return elevation of the southern part of this range is two bays long and has two similar windows on each floor with ovolo glazing bars and arched brick lintels. The southern gable rises from kneelers with an ogee profile and terminates in a chimney stack. There are no windows on this elevation. A small ground floor extension has a single doorway and small window, with a railed balcony at first floor accessed through a further door. Slightly set back from this gable is an adjoining crowstep gable dated 2017 with the initials WR and DG in a plaque near the apex. There are two casement windows with leaded glass and hoodmoulds at each floor of this new addition. The return elevation connects at first floor to the east gable of the 17th-century range, also marked with a date stone reading TC 1721, and at ground floor to the pedimented rear elevation of the reconstructed dairy. This new work has two segmental arched sash windows at ground floor.

The rear elevation of the cottage continues the brick and rubble walling with galletted joints as found at the front. There are two windows each at ground and first floor, all introduced since 2014, and a doorway with simple brick jambs. The roof is covered in glazed pantiles. On the right hand side the return elevation of the southern extension has been substantially reconstructed with random brick rubble walling. There are multi-light mullion and transom leaded windows with brick hoodmoulds at ground floor, either side of a blocked doorway, and a five-light first floor window with leaded glass. The southern gable end of this range is built of brick and stone rubble and has a small replacement window at first floor.

The east elevation of the extended cottage range is, to the left, the south, built of coursed clunch rubble with brick dressings over a flint plinth. The roof is covered in glazed pantiles. The windows, four at ground floor and three at first in this clunch section, have been renewed with timber casements. A slim extension constructed of random brick rubble has been erected alongside the northern three bays of the cottage range. The extension has a plain tiled roof, a projecting oak porch leading to an oak boarded door, and two differently sized casement windows with leaded glass. In the upper levels of the gable wall that terminates the cottage there are two-light casement windows either side of a brick chimney stack that has been dated 2016 with the word RESURGAM and the initials WR and DG. The wall at the upper level of the gable features a pattern of diapered brickwork amongst the flint rubble.

Northwold Manor has a highly complex interior, reflecting the accretive form of the building. Its plan has changed very little since the early 19th century so that there are no corridors and rooms are accessed in succession. The only dedicated circulation space is the stair hall in the Regency wing.

The building's historic interior features have a very high degree of survival. Fireplaces, joinery and plasterwork survive or have been conserved like for like throughout. Many of these features are original, but there is also a history of alteration and replacement between the 16th and early 19th centuries which can be read in the changing fabric of the building.

High status interiors of particular interest include the stair hall and ground floor drawing room and first floor bedroom in the Regency wing; and the inner hall, breakfast room, which was the original kitchen, and dining room on the ground floor of the 17th-century manor house.

The Regency rooms all have tall windows with narrow glazing bars and panelled shutters. The stair hall has, around the principal entrance, a pair of panelled cupboards. At the heart of the hall is an open well containing a cantilevered stone staircase with stick balusters and a mahogany handrail. The handrail terminates in a monkey-tail newel at the centre of which is an ebony plug. At the top of the stairs a classical timber arch leads into a porch-chamber with a Carrara marble fireplace.

The ground floor drawing room in the Regency wing was originally a dining or ball room. It does not have street facing windows, though blind fenestration exists externally to maintain the uniformity of the building. Inside there is a recess for a buffet on the street-side of the room.

The first-floor regency bedroom has a classical fire surround with fluted columns and a dentilled, egg-and-dart cornice. The windows have narrow glazing bars and panelled shutters.

The 17th-century manor house connects to the Regency wing with an enfilade at ground and first floor, despite the changing levels between the two blocks. Some doorways and the bressumers of fireplaces in the 17th-century areas show apotropaic marks such as taper burns and daisy wheels.

The inner hall has a tall late 17th-century fire surround and panelled overmantle, carved with fluted ionic pilasters. An encased transverse beam runs through the centre of the room.

The original kitchen, now the breakfast room, has a wide brick fireplace with a cleaned oak bressumer. Original iron rods run within the chimney void.

The dining room, the original parlour, has 1722 full-height pine panelling which at the time of inspection was undergoing conservation. The sash windows to this room have wide late 17th or early 18th-century ovolo-moulded glazing bars. Traces of painted decoration have been found within the fireplace, which sits in an 18th-century surround with a broken-pedimented overmantle.

The 17th-century staircase is made of oak from ground to first floor and winds through a closed compartment adjoining the central chimney stack. From the first floor to the attic the stair is made of pine.

The upper storey of the 17th-century range continues to demonstrate the high incidence of survival of historic features including fireplaces, windows with shutters, floor surfaces and joinery.

The attics of the 17th-century range are inhabited and retain fireplaces and historic floor surfaces of pine boards. The partially exposed oak roof structures with staggered purlins appear to be original and display carpenters' marks, as well as indications of reassembly or repair.

The cellars beneath the 17th-century range are built of brick with some clunch rubble. A later set of wine bins created in brick has been inserted in the 19th century.

The extended modern kitchen in the 1847 to 1850 infill building, originally a dairy, between the 17th and 16th-century ranges houses an underground cistern, possibly for the storage of soft water.

The 16th-century range has an exposed timber frame within outer masonry walls. The longitudinal beam seen in the kitchen is a reused wall plate and meets an 18th-century chimney stack that has an inserted 19th-century bread oven within an older fireplace. Part of the first floor structure is missing from the principal living space, creating a mezzanine deck over the ground floor. Adjacent to the partly-infilled 16th-century fireplace is a small stair.

The rear extension to the 16th-century range uses as part of the structure of the first floor heavily moulded 16th-century beams and joists of exceptional quality that have been recycled from Norwich's Strangers' Hall. Some maroon paint remains on the surface of the beams.