Welle Manor Hall

Welle Manor Hall is a manor house with origins in the mid-14th century, significantly altered around 1480, and subsequently in the 17th and 20th centuries. It is constructed of brick with slate or plain tile roofs. The north front is three stories high and features a full-height late 15th-century porch on the left with a stone arched doorway incorporating roll and hollow mouldings. A plank and muntin door leads into the hall. A sash window is located on the first floor of the porch, set within the original square hood mould. A stepped gable with kneelers and an apical ashlar pinnacle, set into and projecting from the brickwork, tops the porch. To the right of the porch are two stepped gable bays separated by a large buttress, with bays of uneven size. Floors are visually defined by an arcade of brick trefoils, the arcade between the ground and first floors interrupted by the buttress. There are three timber cross casements on the ground floor with leaded lights, two similar to the first floor, and one in each gable head. A polygonal staircase tower closes the facade to the right, entered through an arched door. To the left of the porch is a large 19th-century brick extension of two bays and a dormer attic, featuring a large external chimney breast, one sash window per floor, and a gabled roof. A ridge stack and dormer window are positioned to the right of centre. The west return has an external stack rising from a narrow brick bay, with a two-light round-arched casement at first floor and a 20th-century casement on the ground floor. The south front displays two gabled bays and a 19th-century hipped-roof polygonal full-height stair-turret to the right. Adjoining the tower to the left is a two-story square tower likely dating to the 14th century, also with a 19th-century pyramid roof. The polygonal stair turret has three windows on its south facet; the ground floor window has two round-headed lights within a square opening, the first floor has a tall round-headed window with a sash below a casement, and the top floor contains two round-headed lights under a square hood mould with labels. A saw-toothed eaves cornice is present. The ground floor of the square tower is obscured by a 20th-century extension. The first floor has a round-headed window with a hood mould. A stepped buttress supports the western gable, to the right of which is a segmental-headed doorway, a first-floor sash window, and an attic casement. A 19th-century extension to the east is two stories high with a dormer attic, featuring cross casements. A gabled cross wing to the right incorporates a canted bay window extending through two stories and has a gabled roof. Inside, the hall is entered from the porch through a 15th-century decorated door featuring arches and shallow niches. Two arched doorways to screens remain, now blocked, dating back to around 1360 and incorporating complex wave moulded jambs and continuous arches. The rear stair turret contains a spiral brick staircase to the attic. The first-floor music room features two blocked lancet lights with leaded glass. Roofs are of the crown post style with straight braces from tie beams and to crown purlin. The crown posts are square in section, chamfered at the corners, of 15th-century origin, although most of the timbers have been renewed.