Barhams Manor

Barhams Manor is a house dating from about 1500, with significant additions and alterations from the 16th century onwards, and remodeling in the late 18th century. A 19th-century service range is located at the rear. The house is timber-framed, rendered, with a red brick section in Flemish bond. The stacks are of white brick to the front range, and red elsewhere. The roofs are tiled, except for the slate covering the front pitch of the main range.

Originally built as an open hall with cross wings, the front range has a discernible through passage to the right, with a later inserted stack. Two lower cross wings were added to the rear, the one to the right linked to the 19th-century service block by a single-storey brick porch. The front range comprises seven bays arranged 2.1.1.1.2, with the centre and outer bays projecting slightly. A central Doric porch shelters a six-panel door set within an architrave. Tripartite bow windows with slender glazing bars characterize the outer bays, while the remaining bays feature slightly recessed 12-pane sashes with sills. A mutule cornice sits below a central pediment, and the outer bays have hipped roofs. Similar bow window detailing is visible on the right return. The rear wings are gabled; the right wing has a 19th-century canted bay window with sashes featuring arched upper panes, above which is a three-light casement flanked by ovolo mullion side lights. These are set beneath a steeply pitched swept roof. A single-storey painted brick porch, with a six-panel door in a pilastered doorcase, links to the rear service range/grain store, which retains some original openings under cambered gauged arches. The garden front is largely blank, with one original entrance and two 20th-century windows above.

Inside, the entrance hall is oval in plan, with round arches leading to the stairhall and front rooms. The stairhall was remodelled in the 1930s, and the staircase balustrade dates from that period. A large 16th-century chamfered beam, with stop-chamfered spine beams with run-out stops, associated with the floor above the hall, remains. A section of open truss is exposed above, featuring a chamfered cambered tie beam with a large hollow chamfered arch brace, though the tie beam is truncated. A front room to the left retains its original 18th-century panelling. The original rear entrance is partly visible above the steps leading to a later cellar. Reused 17th-century panelling forms a dado on the first-floor landing. A first-floor front room to the left has 17th-century panelling concealing two large sections of 16th-century wall painting, depicting interlaced octagons in black on a white ground, incorporating pomegranate and flower motifs, surmounted by a wide border with Renaissance motifs. Further painting may survive under panelling. A cambered bressummer of a former fireplace is visible on an outer wall. Rear rooms contain further 17th- and 18th-century panelling. The roof was reconstructed during the 18th-century remodeling, incorporating several smoke-blackened rafters and a truncated octagonal crown post with shaped base. The 18th-century roof was originally M-shaped, with the apex flattened in the 20th century.