Manor House

Manor House is a substantial residence built in 1929–1930 by architect Douglas Wood for Samuel Wallrock. It was designed in the manner of a late 16th- or early 17th-century house and incorporates a considerable quantity of salvaged historic materials and fittings. The interiors are predominantly Jacobean Revival in character, though the drawing room is fitted out in the reduced classical style typical of the interwar period, described at the time as Empire style.

The house is constructed using pegged timber framing, much of it salvaged from earlier buildings, along with handmade red brick and herringbone brick nogging. The upper floors are tile-hung and the roofs covered in plain tiles. Windows throughout have timber-framed mullion and transom frames with casements fitted with leaded lights. Among the architectural fixtures and fittings are panelling said to have come from Lord Leverhulme's estate in Cheshire, armorial glass from Wallrock's former regiment, the County of Middlesex, and from the Incorporated Society of Auctioneers, of which he was past president.

The plan is asymmetrical and of two storeys, designed to resemble a vernacular building that had been extended over time. Although the house is traditionally constructed, its layout does not follow a typical historic model. The entrance front to the north is dominated by a forward gabled bay containing the stair hall and main entrance, flanked to the right, or west, by a shallower gabled bay with prominent external stacks rising above the ridge. To the left, or east, of the entrance bay, a three-bay, two-storey range leads to a single-storey service wing.

The south-facing garden front comprises a seven-bay range opening onto a raised terrace overlooking the garden, with the eastern section breaking forward slightly. The westernmost corner bay faces both south and west, while single-storey service rooms occupy the eastern end.

The entrance is set beneath a prominent gabled porch with a tile roof supported on twisted timber piers. It has a moulded stone doorcase with a shallow four-centred arch and an oak door with studded moulded muntins. The entrance is flanked by single-storey bays, each comprising a canted window on a brick base beneath a pentice roof that wraps around the angle. The jettied first floor has a full-width stair window of timber casements and fixed lights; the central lights have rounded heads with rosettes in the spandrels. All have diamond leaded panes with inset reused armorial glass. The gable has exposed timber framing and enriched bargeboards on deep oversailing eaves. The adjacent gabled bay is more simply treated, tile-hung at first floor. Ground floor windows have lozenge leaded lights, and at first floor there is a single oriel window with a moulded frame and base and rectangular leaded lights. Shallow eaves have shaped bargeboards. To the left, or east, of the entrance bay, the innermost bays of the three-bay, two-storey range have paired gables, while at the service end to the east the building dies away to a single-storey bay beneath deep hipped roofs. To the left of the entrance on the ground floor, timber mullion and transom windows alternate with bays of exposed framing with herringbone brick nogging. On the first floor, an oriel window similar to the right-hand window and a projecting bay window on prominent brackets alternate with simple cross casements. Tall grouped stacks, some set diagonally, have moulded bases and caps.

The south-facing elevation in seven bays is articulated by asymmetrically grouped gables, with the eastern section breaking forward. The western section, containing the principal rooms, is more elaborately finished than the eastern section. The first floor oriel window has a moulded frame and a rough-hewn base, and bargeboards are cusped, whereas to the east the smaller oriel has a moulded base and scalloped bargeboards. To the right of the central bay, a two-storey window bay projects beneath the gable. The central bay has a timber porch supported on rough-hewn posts and supporting a first-floor balcony with a balustrade of salvaged reused twisted balusters. Timber mullion and transom windows have metal-framed casements with leaded lights. Doors are fully or partly glazed beneath four-centred arched heads and have glazed margin lights.

On the west elevation, the forward gabled bay has a canted ground floor bay and jettied upper floor, both fully glazed with casements and fixed lights—square paned on the ground floor and lozenge-shaped on the first floor. Adjacent to the window are inset terracotta panels. To the left are two prominent external brick stacks. At the lower, eastern end of the house are intersecting gabled roofs and a deep hipped roof above a pentice roof protecting the side entrance and a round-headed, ventilated doorway to the cellar. Throughout, the house has ornate rainwater goods and heads imitating lead.

The entrance is flanked by an exposed pegged timber frame with inset panels of moulded terracotta tiles. A pair of oak doors in a four-centred arched frame have glazed upper lights above cusped lower panels. The hall, stair and landing walls are in slender scantling timber framing, some of it applied rather than structural, and have moulded ceiling beams, joists and cornices and in some areas applied panelling. A composite Jacobean chimneypiece has a moulded, four-centred arched stone fireplace lined in herringbone brick and tile, an oak mantelpiece supported on each side by a draped figure with arms crossed, resting on a richly carved foliate base, and a three-bay arcaded overmantel beneath an elaborate cornice, each bay supported by a grotesque figure.

The study, including the window reveals and soffit, is fully lined in square panelling and has simple chamfered ceiling joists. A moulded stone chimneypiece has gothicised columnar shafts supporting a central pointed carved panel depicting game.

The dining room is fully lined in panelling said to come from Lord Leverhulme's estate in Cheshire, comprising richly moulded linenfold panelling between a deep base and frieze. The base has moulded panels between carved standing figures, their headgear in the form of stylised Ionic capitals. The frieze is made up of carved and painted panels of grotesque heads, some in profile. The ceiling has intersecting moulded ribs, also painted, enriched with a foliate trail, forming lozenge and circular panels, and including Wallrock's rebus of a wall and rock, and an enriched, painted cornice. The room has a classically informed, richly carved chimneypiece in Jacobean manner, and a moulded stone fireplace. Ground floor doors to the dining room, study and opening onto the hall have ornate Jacobean panelling applied to one or both faces.

The drawing room is an interwar interpretation of a late 18th- or early 19th-century room. It has a marble chimneypiece, the frieze depicting a pair of gryphons or sphinxes flanking an urn, moulded wall panels beneath a dentil cornice and a ceiling also enriched with husked garlands. The inner face of the door is in six moulded panels.

An open-well, closed string stair in oak has moulded splat balusters, a moulded rail and robust pierced lantern finials. It is said to be copied from the stair in a house in Worcestershire.

The stair window has inset panels of armorial glass that include a commemoration of Wallrock's presidency of the Incorporated Society of Auctioneers and Landed Property Agents 1926–1927 and 1928; his regiment, 2nd Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, City of London Regiment; his son's school, Streete Court, Westgate; the arms of the County of Middlesex; the Royal Horticultural Society; and the British Red Cross Society.

First floor rooms in the western, principal area of the house have six- and four-panelled doors in panelled linings; one door is lined in 16th-century panelling on one side and, on the former bathroom side, in panelling said to have come from France. Two rooms have early to mid-19th-century marble chimneypieces with Greek key pattern and floral inlay in black marble; one room has a moulded fireplace surround, reeded panelled walls, and built-in cupboards with rosette ornament to the panels. The corridor, lined in raised moulded panels, leads to a back stair with square newels and stick balusters.