Horton Court

Horton Court is a manor house, incorporating a possible prebendal house, with a complex history dating back to around 1140. The north wing, originally built around 1140, was altered in the 14th, 15th, and 18th centuries, with a west window inserted around 1860 and restored in 1884 by F.C. Penrose. The main body of the house, constructed around 1521 for William Knight, Prothonotary and later Bishop of Bath and Wells, was extensively altered and restored around 1884 by F.C. Penrose and again in 1937.

The north wing is constructed of rubble, rendered to the west, and dressed stone to the north, with a stone slate roof. It features a single-storey prebend's house with two doorways facing each other at the west end. The south elevation displays two 19th and 20th-century two-light casement windows with ovolo moulded and chamfered mullions, a small 12th-century window on the first floor to the left, a blocked 14th-century doorway to the left, and a 12th-century doorway to the right, exhibiting scalloped capitals to the jamb shafts and a chevron moulded arch. The west gable has a 19th-century cross window with trefoil heads. The north elevation has two round-headed 12th-century windows, Perpendicular style buttresses and a door at the west end similar to the south elevation, but displaying the arms of Robert Neville, Bishop of Salisbury, set above the doorway.

The manor house forms an irregular L-plan to the south of the prebend's hall and is constructed of rubble with freestone dressings, topped with a Cotswold stone slate roof, and features rubble stacks. It has two storeys and attics, with gabled dormers. The west elevation has five bays (with a two-bay cross wing to the south), featuring 19th-century two- and three-light casement and cross windows with ovolo moulded and chamfered mullions and surrounds, and a canted bay to the north. A two-story projecting gabled porch, in a Renaissance style, has panels on the ground floor and a surround of arabesques, armour on foliage carved on the jambs, Tudor roses, and the Knight’s arms on the frieze, surmounted by a dentilled cornice. The south elevation comprises five two- and three-light casement windows, two-light casements with four-centred heads on the first floor, and projecting single-bay gabled wings to either side.

Inside, the prebend's hall has a skewed 14th-century arch-braced roof. The north wall windows have deep embrasures and a roll moulding to the inner edge. A 16th-century ashlar fireplace has a square-headed surround with a roll moulding, a blank shield, and a lintel bearing "Wilhelmus Knight Protohenotarius Ano 1521," referencing William Knight’s role in 1521. The hall of the manor house features a framed ceiling with double hollow moulded beams and run-out stops, chamfered joists, and an ashlar fireplace with Renaissance details, including fluted pilasters, coarsely cut capitals, low-relief grotesque figures and arms, as well as the Knight’s arms and prothonotary’s hat. A stone bearing the inscription “Wilhelmus Knight Protohenotarius Ano 1521” was brought from the garden and set above the fireplace. The drawing room contains reassembled early 17th-century panelling and a ribbed ceiling (1937), while the dining room has ovolo and hollow moulded beams. The southeastern section of the house contains panelled bedrooms.