Yarnton Manor And Attached Wall And Gateway

Yarnton Manor and Attached Wall and Gateway

Manor house, now college. Built c.1611 for Sir Thomas Spencer. The south wing was rebuilt and shaped gables built to the front in 1897 by Thomas Garner for H.R. Franklin, and the interior was remodelled at this time.

The building is constructed of squared and coursed limestone with a gabled stone slate roof. It has moulded ashlar ridge and end stacks. The design follows a Jacobean style with a complex plan. The main front has 2 storeys and an attic, arranged in a symmetrical 5-window range. Shaped gables with obelisk finials mark the centre and outer bays.

The central frontispiece features an early 17th-century four-light ovolo-moulded stone-mullioned and transomed window. Above the window, the Spencer arms are displayed in a cartouche set within a nowy-headed panel, flanked by obelisks. Below this is a semi-circular arched doorway with open spendrels and fluted pilasters. The centre bay is flanked by similar early 17th-century five-light windows. To the right are four-light windows, and to the left are late 19th-century four-light windows. The left wing has similar late 19th-century windows and a 2-storey bow window. The rear elevation displays shaped gables with obelisk finials, a central late 19th-century studded door, and early 17th-century mullioned and transomed windows. A late 19th-century service range to the right is built of similar materials and features a pierced balustrade and a 16th-century chamfered light to the rear.

Interior

The floors are stone-flagged. The hall contains an early 17th-century studded door set in a moulded Tudor-arched architrave, with late 19th-century Jacobean-style panelling and two round-arched doorways. The hall has late 19th-century panelling incorporating early 17th-century cartouches and panels, and a finely carved arcaded frieze with caryatids. An early 17th-century arched ovolo-moulded fireplace features strapwork panels and an interlinked fluted frieze, with a heraldic achievement set in the overmantel flanked by Ionic pilasters with rosettes in guilloche carving. Early 17th-century oval stone arches above the panelling formerly held busts, said to be of Roman emperors.

In front of the hall is a smaller room with late 19th-century panelled dado and a late 17th-century bolection-moulded fireplace with painted and gilt decoration and Ionic pilasters to a dentilled cornice. A De Witt painting of a Dutch church interior is set in a pedimented overmantel with Corinthian pilasters.

To the left are rooms with late 19th-century Jacobean-style panelling and a fireplace with overmantel. To the right of the hall is a late 16th-century Tudor-arched moulded stone doorway, a late 19th-century Jacobean-style staircase with pierced balusters, and late 19th-century panelling with pendants to a strapwork plaster ceiling.

On the first floor, the left side has late 19th-century panelling. A bolection-panelled room to the rear contains a late 17th-century painting of a pastoral scene set in the overmantel. Rooms to the right include a long gallery to the front with early 17th-century panelling with reeded pilasters, and a stone ovolo-moulded fireplace with rosettes and lozenges to the frieze flanked by herms. The overmantel is painted and gilded wood with strapwork pilasters, a honeysuckle frieze, and marbled panels flanking a carved heraldic achievement. A late 17th-century bolection-panelled room and similar doors appear in the room to the rear, which has walnut-graining to the panels and an early 17th-century stone ovolo-moulded fireplace with lozenges and roundels to the architrave. Early 17th-century panelling with walnut-graining and a fluted frieze appears in a room to the rear right, which has an early 17th-century moulded stone fireplace with panelled pilasters and an overmantel with Ionic capitals and a dentilled cornice. The stair-hall has similar late 17th-century grained panelling.

History

The building was used as a military hospital during the Civil War. Following the war, the north and south wings and the range surrounding the courtyard to the rear were demolished. It then served as a farmhouse until 1895.