Charney Manor The Manor House

The Manor House at Charney Bassett is a manor house dating to the late 13th century, with a 17th-century wing and later alterations and additions. It is constructed of random limestone rubble with a stone slate roof and stone stacks. The original design included a first-floor solar and chapel built onto the right side of the front wall of the solar, with an undercroft beneath. The front wall of the chapel features a two-light window with Y-tracery and a semi-circular arch over a round-headed, chamfered doorway adjacent to a slit window. The front left wall of the solar block has a two-light window with Y-tracery, two close-set lancets, and a corner buttress with a gablet.

The 17th-century central wing, with alterations around 1858, has a four-window range of two-light mullioned windows. A hip roof covers a projecting central bay featuring four-light mullioned and transomed windows above a studded door set within a square-headed, chamfered architrave flanked by one-light transomed windows. Two dormers and a ridge stack are also present. A wing to the right was demolished and rebuilt around 1858 in a similar style and using matching materials. A single-storey block and a wing at right angles have been added, incorporating a reset 13th-century slit window within the front gable of the right wing.

The rear of the 17th-century wing has a similar three-window range, with a Tudor-style doorway containing a four-centred arch and moulded architrave leading to a six-panelled door, accompanied by a gabled porch with a matching doorway. Two hipped dormers are also present.

Inside, the undercroft contains a 13th-century fireplace with a shouldered architrave and a bread oven. Doorways to the right have a chamfered round-headed arch to the rear and a chamfered pointed arch to the front. The undercroft also has large plain beams and joists. The first-floor solar retains a similar chamfered pointed arch and a late 16th-century fireplace, as well as a late 13th-century crown post roof with four-way struts, a square base, and an octagonal crown post. The solar originally extended further west; a 17th-century rear wall blocks a late 13th-century doorway with a chamfered pointed arch in the rear left corner. The rear wall features four late 17th-century two- and three-light stone mullioned chamfered windows. One two-light window has an additional 20th-century light, and a similar style 20th-century window is located below. A chamfered pointed arch provides access from the solar to the east chapel, which has a trefoiled piscina and a two-bay roof remodelled in the mid-19th century but largely retaining its tie beam. The central wing has a 17th-century collar-truss roof with butt purlins. A reset late 13th-century quatrefoil window is set into the west wall of the right wing.

The manor was formerly owned by Abingdon Abbey and represents an important surviving example of a late 13th-century solar, undercroft and attached chapel.