Appleton Manor

Appleton Manor

Manor house, now residential property. The building's core dates to around 1190–1200, with the screens and parlour end to the right surviving from this period. A late 16th-century porch was added, followed by an early 17th-century extension to the left. The house was substantially remodelled and extended to the rear in 1924 by architects Detmar Blow and Billerus for Mrs Timpson.

The exterior is constructed of uncoursed limestone rubble with ashlar dressings, and features slate hanging at the top of the gabled right bay. The jettied and timber-framed first floor of the porch displays close studding. The roof is of stone slate with a stone ridge and internal stacks. The original late 12th-century plan form is unclear, but the house was remodelled into an L-shape in Arts and Crafts style with a rear left wing during the 1924 works.

The building presents 2 storeys and an attic across a 6-window range, including gabled fronts to the right outer bay, central bay, and the gabled porch positioned right of centre. The very fine late 12th-century doorway features a deep-moulded arch set on 3 orders of colonettes with stiff-leaf capitals. The porch in front contains an early 19th-century nine-panelled door with dolphin knocker, set in a moulded wood architrave. The jettied first floor of the late 16th-century porch has a wood-mullioned ovolo-moulded canted bay window supported on brackets carved in low relief. The central bay to the left features an early 20th-century canted bay window with stone-mullioned lights. To the left, a 2-window range includes timber lintels over a central 20th-century door, with an early 20th-century casement to the right, and a late 16th/17th-century two-light ovolo-moulded cross-window to the left, with similar windows above incorporating reused late 16th/17th-century mullions to the right. A late 12th-century roll-moulded arris survives at the rear right corner of the parlour. The side walls and rear were remodelled by Blow and Billerus, who added similar canted bay windows and hipped roof dormers.

The interior hall, entered through the main late 12th-century doorway, contains 2 late 12th-century chamfered round-arched service doorways to the left with roll-moulded hood moulds and a small carved head between them. The room to the right is divided from the hall by a late 16th-century inserted stack; it has a chamfered bressumer over an open fireplace with reused roll-moulded jambs and late 16th-century panelling. Two fireplaces with chamfered bressuners occupy the left side. On the first floor, a late 16th-century moulded stone fireplace appears to the right. The porch contains stop-chamfered beams, and its left side wall is close-studded with blocked 2-light ovolo-moulded wood-mullioned windows. The 17th-century room to the left of the porch has a stop-chamfered beam and chamfered bressumer over a fireplace. Other interior features—reused early 18th-century panelling, doors, fireplaces, and a late 17th-century-style staircase with thick turned balusters and newel posts finished with roughly rounded blocks—are by Blow and Billerus.

The late 12th-century portion makes Appleton Manor one of the oldest surviving inhabited manor houses in Britain. The late 12th-century hall is defined by the roll-moulded arris to the outer wall and the magnificent entrance and service doorways at the opposite end. Sir John Fettiplace purchased Appleton Manor in 1580; in 1634, it was bought by Speaker Lenthall of Burford, who later restored the Church at Besselsleigh.