Manor House

WOODEATON SP51SW 1/239 Manor House 18/07/63 (Formerly listed as Woodeaton Manor Special School) GV II*

Manor house, now school. 1775 for John Weyland; porch, east wing and interiors c.1790 by Sir John Soane. Limestone ashlar; stone-slate roofs. Double-pile plan, extended. 3 storeys. Symmetrical 5-bay front, with dentil cornice below cills of attic storey, has, in the centre bay, an arched entrance with door and fanlight between narrow sashes, all behind an Ionic tetrastyle Coade-stone portico, and has corresponding triplets of sashes at first and second floors; ground-floor sashes in second and fourth bays have arched heads. Single-storey kitchen wing to left. Shallow-pitched hipped roofs behind plain parapets. 7-bay rear has a basement storey but the top storey becomes a mansard roof; central bay is canted and has 3 full-length sashes with iron balconies at upper-ground floor. 4-window wing is divided as a 2-window 3-storey pavilion and a 2-storey linking range, both with sashes and arched recesses at upper-ground floor. Interior: Entrance hall has paired doorways with panelled mahogany doors, and doorcases with delicate entablatures; rams-head cornice; white marble fireplace with Ionic columns and inlaid vases in green veined marble. 3 principal rooms facing rear have similar doors and decoration, and have further fine fireplaces - drawing room: white marble with figurative central tablet, baskets of fruit, and musical instruments; bay-ended, library: festoons and brown marble inlay; dining room: grey marble inlay, ox heads, and vase on central tablet. Other rooms have C18 cornices and plainer fireplaces. Open-well stair has cantilevered oak treads and a wrought-iron balustrade. Portico is noted as signed "Coade London 1791". Soane's proposed balancing wing was never built. (V.C.H.: Oxfordshire, Vol.V, p.310; Buildings of England: Oxfordshire, pp.853-4).

Listing NGR: SP5338011986