Vernham Manor House

The house, known as Vernham Manor House, exhibits a complex development from medieval origins through the 16th, 18th, and 19th centuries. An initial timber-framed core suggests a medieval building, later altered with three large chimneys attached to the rear, now incorporated into the interior. The symmetrical front elevation, built around 1600, is of two storeys with attics to the wings, and contains a basement in the centre. The design incorporates 1.5.1 windows. The projecting gabled wings are built in English bond brickwork on a high plinth, while the central section features flintwork with brick dressings. The ground floor of the centre has cambered arches with three-light chamfered brick mullions. Leaded casements are set at a lower level to the ground floor centre while the wings have two-storeyed splayed bays with mullion and transom casements to the south side and 20th-century sash windows to the north. A 20th-century gabled brick porch hides an Elizabethan wooden doorframe. The north elevation displays a massive stack with two diagonal flues built against English bond brickwork featuring a blue-diaper pattern and narrow horizontal flint bands. The south elevation is similar with two stacks; one with a single diagonal flue and the other with three flues, the two outer ones diagonal. The rear walls are of Flemish bond brickwork with blue headers, cambered ground floor openings, and casements, some of which are blocked. The wings project and appear to date from the early 19th century, with access to higher ground from the first floor on the north side. Interior features include 17th-century panelling, an elaborate but crude Jacobean screen with Ionic pilasters, Jacobean panelling above a fireplace, two fireplaces with reeded cast-iron (Adam-style) fittings, an 18th-century corner cupboard, a plain plaster barrel vault on the first floor of the north wing, and a plain 18th-century staircase.