Puncknowle Manor House

Puncknowle Manor House is a manor house dating from approximately 1600, with an 19th-century rear extension. It is constructed of rubble-stone walls with dressed stone quoins, and has a hipped roof covered in diminishing stone slabs. There are stacks at the north end of the east wall, one with a tapering base and rendered finish, and a brick stack on the south-west wall.

The house has a substantial porch at the centre of the east elevation, topped with a hipped roof. The original east block comprises a single depth, with rebuilt and added rear ranges. The main elevation has two storeys and attics, and features three windows with three lights each. These windows have elliptical heads and ovolo stone mullions that continue up into the arches, with separate labels above. The windows contain fixed lead lights and 19th-century metal casements, with intersecting leadwork at the top centre and top left. A round-headed entrance arch, with moulded jambs and returned label, forms the porch’s entrance, and includes a recessed panel with an illegible inscription above a three-light window. Further two single-light windows of the same style illuminate the landing staircases. The porch also contains a stone barrel-vault and stone seats. The inner door has straight-chamfered jambs, and a 20th-century two-leaf door with bolections. A two-storey, four-window 19th-century rear range has dormers, two- and three-light wooden casements with glazing-bars, and stone cills. 20th-century French windows have been inserted into bays one and three. Four dormers over this range have sliding sashes and glazing-bars. A modern range projects to the north, forming the present main entrance and features a quasi-castellated parapet with a flat roof behind and a saute casement design.

The interior ground floor has been opened up, obscuring the original divisions. The ground floor features five major ceiling beams, slightly-chamfered, supported by moulded wooden brackets with stylized foliage. The south room on the upper floor retains complete bolection-moulded panelling with a dado rail, originally painted in a brown grissaille style featuring landscape scenes and a depiction of Moses in the Bull-rushes on the north wall. The north room is decorated with a green ground and pink panels, cherubs in gold, and corner foliage. The date of this colouring is unknown.