Weston Manor Hotel

Weston Manor Hotel

Manor house, now hotel. Originally built in the late medieval period for the bailiffs of Osney Abbey, the building was remodelled in the mid-16th century for Lord Williams of Thame, and then re-fronted and partly rebuilt around 1820 for the Bertie family. It is constructed of random and coursed squared limestone rubble with ashlar dressings, and has Stonesfield-slate roofs with brick stacks.

The building is arranged on a courtyard plan. The entrance front, facing the Oxford Road, is seven windows wide and features 3-storey outer towers that are gabled on all four sides, with the left tower retaining much early random masonry. Between the towers is a linking 2-storey section with a central projecting 3-storey porch tower. This porch tower contains a 4-centre arched entrance below a decorative stucco panel and is topped with a short stone spire. The stone-mullioned windows throughout have labels and tall 4-centre arched lights with sashes. The roofs are finished with crenellated parapets. A short subsidiary range projects to the right of the entrance front.

The left end returns to a contemporary 3-storey range with similar mullioned windows and a large canted 2-storey bay window. The south range extends further with a lower 16th-century hall that features a projecting octagonal stair turret rising above the roof, decorated with a moulded parapet and a 4-centre arched doorway with roses in the spandrels. To the right of the turret are two tiers of renewed mullioned windows with arched lights and a corbelled first-floor link from the turret, whilst to the left are two tall renewed mullioned and transomed windows. The gable wall of the hall contains two original 4-light hollow-chamfered mullioned windows, the upper one with a label.

On the west front are two projections. The very narrow 2-storey wing at the southern end has battered walls, first-floor cross loops on both sides, and a 17th-century ovolo-moulded 2-light mullioned window in its gable wall. The wider 2-storey projecting wing at the northern end of the west front has a renewed 4-light mullioned window in its gable wall and leaded casements in its side walls. The main 2-storey range behind it has transomed leaded casements of one, two and seven lights, all set below segmental arches.

The north range is probably mostly medieval and has irregular casements with stop-chamfered lintels and an ancient doorway. A projecting section linking with the front range is probably largely rebuilt but rises above an early vaulted undercroft. Throughout the building, the numerous chimneys all have diagonally-set brick shafts. The courtyard walls are decorated with seven reset stone cartouches and a fine arched early-17th-century doorway from Exeter College Chapel, Oxford, featuring carved foliage in the spandrels, moulded framing and panels decorated with nailhead patterns and cartouches.

Interior features include a 19th-century entrance hall with a heavy coffered ceiling with moulded and carved ribs, and a wide Tudor-arched fireplace which may date to the 16th or 17th century. The reception area contains a restored hooded medieval fireplace. The former drawing room has altered bolection-mould panelling, an acanthus cornice and an introduced fireplace. The former dining room, now the bar, is panelled with an acanthus cornice and has an 18th-century fireplace. A dining room in the west range features a Tudor-arched fireplace with strapwork cresting.

An early-18th-century cantilevered stone dogleg stair divides near the top into two flights and is distinguished by unusual heavy turned balusters with acanthus carving and urn finials to the newels.

The old hall contains a five-bay arch-braced collar-truss roof with two rows of curved windbraces rising to moulded purlins, moulded wallplates and moulded braces resting on 19th-century carved corbels. Some original painted decoration survives. The deep gallery has moulded joists and a richly-carved deep frieze with roundels containing Romayne medallions and the initials "RR". The fine early-16th-century linenfold panelling carries a narrow pierced frieze of high-quality workmanship containing vine scrolls, a Latin inscription and roundels. The fireplace is a 20th-century insertion. Both the panelling and roof are from Notley Abbey in Buckinghamshire, introduced circa 1780 and 1851 respectively; the frieze of the panelling bears the name of the last Abbott, Richard Rydge. It is possible that the original hall was in the southern half of the west range and that the old hall was in fact created from a 2-storey chamber range.