Old Manor Farmhouse

Old Manor Farmhouse is a Grade I listed manor house, now a private residence, located on the south side of Main Street in Cottisford. The building dates from the 13th and 14th centuries, with significant alterations and enlargements during the 16th and 17th centuries. The space between projecting wings on the west or rear was filled in during the 19th and 20th centuries. A parlour was built to the rear of the hall on the west side in the 16th century. The first floor hall and solar were ceiled over in the 16th century and the roof was rebuilt at this time. The building has undergone 20th-century alterations and repairs.

The farmhouse is constructed of coursed limestone rubble and squared coursed limestone, with a steeply pitched slate roof and stone end and ridge stacks. Originally a first floor hall and half-H plan structure of 2 storeys plus attics and cellar, the rear or west elevation features irregular fenestration and four gabled projecting wings. From left to right, the small wing to the west of the solar was probably a garderobe and features a 14th-century crested octagonal stack likely to be a vent, as it does not connect to a fireplace. Two rectangular 14th-century windows are visible. The second projecting wing is a 19th and 20th-century infill containing a reused 15th-century two-light window. The third projecting wing led from the medieval first floor hall and has one small 15th-century window; it now contains the 20th-century staircase. The fourth wing has a restored 2-light window on the first floor. The present entrance is contained in a 20th-century lean-to.

The north elevation faces the road and features on the first floor two 15th-century trefoiled lancets to the former solar. Above in the north gable is a window of approximately 1200 with 2 arched lights. The south elevation has an entrance to the right with a 20th-century door with hood, 2 renewed windows to the left, and 3 windows on the first floor. The attic gable contains an 18th-century window with small leaded lights. The east elevation has four 2-light 20th-century imitation wood mullioned and transomed windows.

The interior ground floor comprises a 16th-century hall and kitchen with a 16th-century parlour beyond. Later staircases are located in the south-east corner of the hall and in the gabled wing between the hall and kitchen. An original 16th-century fireplace remains in the hall; other fireplaces have been refronted. The first floor contains a 13th and 14th-century hall and solar. The hall is now divided by later partitions into 3 bedrooms. Moulded ceiling beams on the first floor relate to the insertion of the 16th-century roof and ceiling over of the formerly open hall. A wing opening off from the solar measures 5 feet 6 inches by 9 feet and provides a small closet containing an original stone trough and drain on the north wall, along with 2 contemporary windows of rectangular form with splayed jambs. A projection leading off the hall now contains the principal stair and could originally have provided a small service room or store, though its original function is unclear.

The attic features a 16th-century roof with straight principals rising from a tie beam with an apex saddle mortised to the tops of the blades and a squared ridge resting on edge in a notch cut to receive it. A collar at intermediate level has inclined struts between tie and collar and curved windbraces between the purlins. Trusses span 14 feet 6 inches and bay spacing averages 8 feet. This represents a notable roof providing evidence of the transitional form between raised cruck roof construction of the medieval period and standard 17th-century roof construction. The window of approximately 1200 in the north gable has mullions rebated to receive bars for shutters and was in poor condition at the time of re-survey.

Old Manor Farmhouse is of particular interest as representing the medieval manorial plan with the hall at first floor level, developing from precedents such as Boothby Pagnell in Lincolnshire and related to the stone defensive keeps or donjons of the Norman castle.