Bonds Manor

Bonds Manor

A house forming part of what was originally a farmstead dating from around 1600, possibly with medieval origins. It was substantially extended and updated in 1778. The building is constructed with a timber frame faced in red brick, with a tiled roof.

The house is rectangular in plan. The early 17th-century section comprises three bays, with a late 18th-century addition to the north set back slightly from the west elevation. Both the 17th and 18th-century sections rise to two storeys with attics, and a single-storey lean-to is built against the north gable end.

The west elevation is of red brick laid neatly in Flemish bond. With the late 18th-century addition, this elevation displays four bays. The front door is positioned towards the centre, with four windows on either side. Most are horned and unhorned 12-paned sashes under gauged brick flat arches, except for the ground floor window to the north, which is a casement. The ground floor windows are placed directly below those on the first floor, creating an overall sense of classical symmetry. The brick façade appears to have raised the roofline, resulting in swept eaves. A chimney sits on the ridge between the two southern bays, with a second chimney on the ridge of the 18th-century addition. The main entrance is set within a doorcase with raised fielded panels and fluted pilasters, and the door itself has six raised and fielded decorative panels with a decorative brass door knocker.

The north gable, facing the road, is also of red brick with kneelers and has a modern lean-to at ground floor level. The east elevation shows the late 18th-century addition in brick with windows only to the ground floor, while the early 17th-century house is rendered with incised lines creating the appearance of ashlar stonework. There are two windows each to ground and first floor and a dormer in the roof. Most windows in this elevation are modern except for a small mullioned window under the eaves. The south gable contains a sash window beneath the gable and French doors within a doorcase with raised and fielded panels set under an arch, above which is a moulded decorative boss.

Internally, the house follows an evolved hall house plan with a central hall space flanked by private and service rooms. The service function of the north room transferred to the 18th-century addition. This early three-cell arrangement essentially survives at ground floor and attic levels, though the first floor has been subdivided into four rooms accessed from a central landing, with the 18th-century addition providing a dressing room attached to the north room. Fireplaces flank the main stack between the hall and living room; the side facing the hall to the north features a bressumer.

The early house was timber framed, with visible elements including jowled posts, mid-rail, wall plates, ovolo-moulded axial beams to both ground and first floors, and studs. The roof has coupled rafters, tenoned purlins and collars. The date 1778 is incised into the plaster just above the timber framing of the attic gable end of the earlier house. The framing below this date has been cut through to insert a two-panelled door opening onto the stack within the 18th-century addition. The gable plasterwork displays a rudimentary combed pattern of semicircles framed by incised lines. The attics are fully plastered, showing only principal rafters, collars and purlins.

A winder stair descends to the first floor from a small landing between the central and south attic rooms. At the turn of this winder stair is a small mullioned window, formerly blocked and plastered, uncovered in 2014. Another winder stair from first to ground floor is enclosed behind the south stack but has been superseded by a stair with plain newell posts and stick balusters rising from the hall to the first floor landing. This appears to be one of the few major additions later than the 18th century. Installation of this later stair has revealed sequential carpenters' marks along a section of the mid-rail.

The hall has a glazed brick floor and remains relatively unaltered by 18th-century detail, apart from the sash window to the west and the six-panelled front door, which is plain on the interior side with a moulded surround. Beside the door is an original iron security bar secured to the frame by a staple. The rooms flanking the hall contain more detail, particularly the southern room, which appears to have been the polite reception room in the 18th century. Here all windows and doors have fluted surrounds with corner roundels, windows have panelled reveals, and there is a six-panelled door to the east of the fireplace. On the west side of the short passage joining the south room and hall is a small timber mullioned window with two lights, both with leaded diamond panes; the right light is a metal-framed casement. This window, concealed externally by the late 18th-century brick façade, had also formerly been covered inside the house.

The north room also has windows with panelled reveals, and the doors between it and the 18th-century addition to the north have six raised and fielded panels. Other doors throughout the house are mainly either 18th-century two-panelled doors or later plain four-panelled examples.