Pyrton Manor

Pyrton Manor is a house dating from circa 1600 to 1610, likely built for Edmund Symeon, with alterations in the 18th century. The construction is of random bond brick with stone quoins and dressings, and it has an old tile roof with brick stacks. The house follows an E-plan with a rear left wing. It is in a Late Elizabethan style, presenting a symmetrical 7-window range of projecting wings flanking a hall range, with a central two-storey porch. The stone-moulded 4-centred doorway has a moulded wood architrave with urn stops leading to an early 17th century studded door retaining original iron fittings. Rendered 18th century architraves frame six-pane sash windows with heavy glazing bars; the first-floor windows in the side wings are early 20th century replacements. Stone detailing includes a cyma-moulded plinth and string courses, moulded kneelers, and coping to the outer gabled ends. The gabled roof has moulded end stacks with octagonal flues to the right and diamond flues to the left. Rear lateral stacks also have octagonal flues, and one rear end stack has been rebuilt. A section of the left side wall was rebuilt circa 1786 using grey brick with sashes. The rear elevation and wing feature two- and three-light stone windows with ovolo-moulded surrounds. A two-storey stair turret adjoining the inner side of the rear wing has a similar three-light window above an ovolo-moulded doorway. A mid 19th-century extension to the rear wing incorporates an early 17th-century bay window with a matching three-light window and crenellated parapet, and a mid 19th-century dairy is present to the rear right. Inside, the hall to the left of the centre has a mid 19th-century relief roundel of John Hampden above a mid 19th-century stone fireplace, with an early 17th-century moulded stone fireplace above. The right service wing contains an early 17th-century moulded stone fireplace, and an early 18th-century dog-leg staircase with winders features turned balusters on a closed string. Two early 17th-century doorways lead to first-floor rooms. The left parlour wing has an early 18th-century panelled wall on the first floor, with fluted pilasters and a Doric entablature, framing a space that would have held a large bed, along with a moulded stone fireplace. Three similar early 17th-century doorways open onto an elaborate open-well staircase which features turned balusters, arcaded spandrels, and fine moulded finials on the newels. Post and pad roof trusses are likely late 18th century, with a 17th-century collar truss in the rear left wing. Pyrton Manor was probably constructed for Edmund Symeon, who acquired the manor in 1605; it is noted as the location where John Hampden courted and married Elizabeth Symeon in 1619. The "heavy repairs" of 1786 likely involved the rebuilding of the roof, rather than the front of the building. The nearby site of the medieval manor is moated.