Manor Farm House

SP52SE CHESTERTON MANOR FARM LANE (South side) Great Chesterton

6/40 Manor Farm House

GV II*

Manor house. Early C12 and C16/C17, remodelled late C18. Limestone rubble with wooden lintels; Stonesfield-slate and Welsh-slate roof with brick stacks. L-plan with attached range. 2 storeys plus attics and one storey plus attic. Regular 5-window front of main range has a central dooorway and renewed sashes (12-pane at ground floor and 9-pane above) and has a stone band above first-floor windows; stone-slate roof has 3 gabled roof dormers with brick gable stacks. Lean-to addition against right gable wall. Short rear wing, returning on left, is probably C16/C17 and originally extended beyond the present front; a single-storey kitchen bay to rear of it is C18. Large range linked to rear of right end of main range, and parallel with it, is C12 with a C17 roof; it has 2 original small window openings in the right end (both with later lintels) and an original round-headed entrance, converted to a window and now contained within the linking range. The remains of a window in the left gable is probably medieval. C20 gable and steps to rear. To rear of this range is a timber-framed privy, with brick infill, probably early C18. Interior: rear wing and left end of house have intersecting chamfered beams and an early partition with lattice panels; front windows have panelled shutters; pine panelling in lean-to room. Linking range has some medieval stonework and an early beam which may have formed part of a porch to the C12 range. Lower storey of C12 range is the barrel-vaulted undercroft to a first-floor hall or chamber; the round-arched splays to the end windows and the groined vault over the original doorway survive, but the undercroft is now subdivided by a later, though possibly medieval, crosswall, and there are inserted doorways to right and in the left gable wall plus an inserted window to rear. Upper floor is now contained within the 6-bay butt-purlin roof which has through tenons and had 2 collars (the lower collars are now removed). The building had become a detached outbuilding until late C20 when it was linked to the house, converted, and recognized as one of the earliest known examples of the first-floor hall or chamber, and evidence for a contemporary encircling moat was found. (Dr. J. Blair, Medieval Archaeology, Vol.28, (1984), pp.235-6; V.C.H.: 0xfordshire, Vol.VI, p.93).

Listing NGR: SP5631621367