The Manor House

A large house at Wortham on Low Road, formerly known as Wortham Manor. The building has mid-17th-century origins with earlier timber-framed elements, was raised and altered in the 18th century, and extended in the 19th century. It was built for the Betts family.

The main structure is timber-framed and red brick, all plastered and colourwashed, with plain clay tile roofs. The building displays a vestigial H-plan form arranged as a narrow six-bay range with cross-gabled ends and service buildings to the rear. It is two storeys with attics.

The garden elevation (one:four:one in arrangement) is almost symmetrical. The centre has blocked openings, the first-floor opening featuring a fluted key within a blocked gauged brick round arch. On either side are flanking glazing bar sashes in moulded frames, slightly recessed with gauged brick flat-arched heads. The ground-floor central opening to the left has been replaced by a two-thirds glazed door, raised in the 18th century, with smaller sashes in the attic storey above. The elevation features a plinth and mutuled eaves cornice. The brickwork projects slightly towards the outer bays, which retain offsets to the original eaves line.

The gable-fronted outer bays have two-storey 18th-century canted bays with recessed similar sashes and cyma-moulded cornices to flat heads. The recessed sashes in the bargeboarded gables follow the same pattern. The left gable has a lower ridge than the right.

On the right side of the main ridge, which was raised to retain a steep pitch, stands a large axial ridge stack with a recessed panel at its base, moulded to the shaft with two-by-one-arched panels and a moulded capping. A similar but slightly smaller stack is located internally at the left end of the main ridge.

The left gable end exposes brick and blocked windows, with a moulded plat band and kneelers rising to a shaped gable of triple-curved form: central concave with upper and lower convex sections separated by steps. The plain right gable end contains first-floor and attic three-pane sashes. To the rear is a gable behind the right-hand cross-gabled bay.

Behind the main stack is an early 19th-century gabled stair turret with sashes, added to a lower 17th-century service range of four bays roofed parallel to the main range. A two-storey and attic gabled kitchen wing projects slightly further back, featuring a ground-floor brick casing with a plat band to the first floor and mixed fenestration, with exposed plates and purlins visible.

Two dairy bays to the right have ground-floor three- and five-light casements, first-floor small 19th-century sashes, and a stack in a raised roof. The pantile roofing has a shallow pitch continuing over a 19th-century laundry range. On the ridge is a moulded timber open cupola with a leaded ogee head. Three stacks serve this section. A later brick range of approximately four bays has mixed fenestration and an oversailing timber-framed upper storey facing a small service yard, enclosed by a one-storey pantry and coal shed lean-to attached to the left gable of the main range with a sash opening to the garden.

The interior is notable for its 18th-century features. The entrance leads into a room with 18th-century raised panelling and dentilled cornice, which includes a false door. The hall beyond has a stop-chamfered binding beam, some exposed close studding, and a segmental-arched fireplace with panelled surround featuring fluted pilasters. Within the chimney breast is an early safe with a key-blocked round opening and classical relief on the iron door. To the far left is a cyma-moulded binding beam, and to the far right a reset early 17th-century overmantel with fluted pilasters and three carved panels, alongside 19th-century Gothic doors with some stained glass.

An early 19th-century dogleg staircase with slat balusters and moulded ramped handrail provides access to the first floor. The upper storey retains some 18th-century panelling and features ovolo and cavetto-moulded binding beams with butt purlin roofs.

The service range contains exposed framing with ogee stop-chamfered axial and cross-axial binding beams, some 17th-century panelling, stop-chamfered door jambs, and a double butt purlin roof with collars and windbraces.

A substantial red brick wall of 17th-, 18th-, and 19th-century date, with much English bond brickwork, is attached to the rear and extends approximately 80 metres along the road. Standing about three metres high, it features a plinth, rounded coping, and pilaster buttresses, ramping upwards towards the house and angling back into the garden at the far end. A Gothic-arched opening with a spear-headed railed gate provides access through this boundary wall.