Norrington Manor With Wall And Gate Piers

Norrington Manor is a manor house with associated walls and gate piers, dating from the late 14th century, with significant alterations in the 16th, 17th, and 19th centuries. The construction is primarily dressed limestone with a tiled roof and ashlar stacks.

The original core of the house comprises a three-bay hall and cross passage, flanked by two-storey cross wings dating to the 17th century, with a two-storey front range built in the 16th century. A 15th-century porch on the right side of the front has heavy moulding to its pointed archway, diagonal and angle buttresses, a moulded string course, and a hollow-chamfered light above the archway. To the left of the archway are three 2-light pointed cusped windows with transoms, lighting the hall, separated by intermediate buttresses. The cross wing to the right features two ovolo-moulded cross windows on both the ground and first floors, along with a 2-light ovolo-mullioned window in the attic, and a saddleback coped verge. The cross wing to the left has a 5-light mullioned window with a hoodmould on the ground floor, and a mullioned and transomed window with a hoodmould on the first floor, also with a saddleback coped verge. Projecting to the left is a two-storey, five-window range with 2-light ovolo-mullioned windows and a string course. The rear of this range has inserted 20th-century doors and 3-light and 2-light ovolo-mullioned windows on the ground floor; the first floor has one 16th-century 2-light square-headed window with round-arched lights, and 2-light or 3-light chamfered or hollow-chamfered mullioned windows. The left return of the west cross wing has a hollow-chamfered doorway, while the rear has two chamfered lights to a 14th-century undercroft and a 5-light mullioned and transomed window to the first floor. A former stair to the solar is lit by a 3-light ovolo-mullioned window. The rear of the hall features two 2-light cusped pointed windows matching the front, a pointed chamfered doorway to the through passage, and a 3-light casement to the left, with two buttresses and offsets. The east cross wing has ovolo-moulded cross windows, an ovolo-mullioned window to the attic, and hollow-moulded string courses. The rear 17th-century wing has the same string course and 20th-century casements. The right return of the cross wing incorporates a 4-light Tudor-arched window illuminating the stairs, large external stacks on either side, and a 2-light casement to a dormer. A late 19th-century service wing is situated to the right, with 2-light and 3-light casements.

Internally, the porch contains a fine ribbed stone vault with quatrefoils, corbelled on carved heads with grotesque bosses, and a depressed Tudor-arched inner door. The hall has a Tudor-arched stone fireplace and a chamfered doorway to the solar at the west end, with a rebuilt roof. A two-bay rib-vaulted undercroft of the late 14th century exists, while the rest of the west solar wing was rebuilt in the 17th century, featuring a blocked Tudor-arched fireplace and a deeply-chamfered arched doorway, along with a 19th-century roof. A good 17th-century closed string newel stair with squat turned balusters is retained within the east wing.

Attached to the front are low stone walls with saddleback coping and square gate piers topped with pineapples in acanthus leaves. Norrington Manor was likely built by John Gawen, who acquired the property in 1377. 17th-century alterations were probably carried out by the Wyndham family, who acquired the estate in 1658, as noted by Nikolaus Pevsner.