Manor House

LONGBRIDGE DEVERILL HILL DEVERILL ST 84 SE (east side) 3/192 Manor House

GV II*

Manor house. Late C16, C17 and C18. Rubble stone and dressed limestone, Welsh slate hipped roof, rendered or ashlar stacks with moulded stone cappings. Square through-passage plan with one bay of barn (q.v.) now part of house to east. Two storey, 3-windowed; casements. Central C20 door in moulded stone surround, either side is 4-light hollow-chamfered mullioned casement with moulded headed lights, moulded string course carried over door lintel, cyma- moulded plinth. First floor has 4-light mullioned window as ground floor either side of moulded recessed bull's-eye. String course to plain blocking course with saddleback coping. Left return, garden front is very similar to front, but has half-glazed door to left of centre, C19 hipped attic dormer with 2-light casement. Right return has small 8-pane sash to left, first floor has 3-light and 2-light mullioned casements with arched lights, second floor with 3-light mullioned and transomed window with reused arched lights and hoodmould, string courses. Rear has planked door in beaded case to right, three 4-light hollow-chamfered mullioned and transomed windows and 3-light leaded casement to left, first floor has 3-light mullioned casement and C20 mullioned casement, two gabled dormers with 2-light casements to left, eaves raised in brick to right. Interior: Room to right of entrance has stone Tudor-arched fireplace, C17 wainscot panelling and some C18 panelling, 6- panelled doors or wainscot doors with cock's head hinges in ovolo- moulded cases, exposed joists. Room to left of door has stone Tudor-arched fireplace inserted in open fireplace, other stone Tudor-arched fireplaces in rear sitting room and first floor. Western bay of barn incorporated into house late C17 and floor inserted, during C20 renovation work a dais or platform was found against the east timber-framed partition in this bay. The lower ceiling height and exterior window level of the east half of the house, together with thick internal walls and poorer rubble stone, suggests that this part of the building contains an earlier structure, rebuilt c1700 when present facades and fenestration added. History: Manor of Hill Deverill held by Ludlows from C14, passed to Coker family in 1650s and then to Duke of Marlborough 1738. The present building may be associated with the Coker family, although it may represent the rebuilding of an earlier structure, the house, associated farm buildings and Chantry Cottage occupy a moated site. (R. Colt Hoare, Modern History of South Wiltshire, 1822.)

Listing NGR: ST8694440172