Old Manor House

The Old Manor House is a rectory, now a private house, situated in Duck Street, Sutton Veny. Its origins lie in a mid-14th century hall house, significantly altered in the late 17th century. Further wings were added in the 1850s by the then Rector, G. Powell, and the property was restored in 1921 by D.E.W. Cowie. The construction is primarily dressed limestone, featuring a tiled roof with stone slates to the rear slope and ashlar stacks.

The building comprises a three-bay hall, an east solar cross range encompassing services, and an 1850s wing to the west. It is two storeys and has an attic, displaying eight windows. The main entrance features a double cyma-moulded pointed doorway leading to a through passage. To the right of the hall is a buttress with offsets and two 2-light pointed windows: one original 14th-century window with Decorated tracery, and a 1921 replacement. To the left, a former service bay has a flush sash window to both the ground and first floors, alongside two hipped dormers with sashes to the attic. An attached range from the 1850s boasts two 12-pane sashes to each of the ground and first floors, with hipped dormers containing casements in the attic. The cross range on the right has an early 20th-century planked door and casements to the ground floor, plus a 12-pane sash and a 3-light casement to the first floor, capped with a hipped roof.

The rear elevation includes two 15-pane sashes and a 12-pane sash to the 1850s wing, and two restored 14th-century pointed windows to the hall. A moulded pointed doorway leads to the through passage, while a round-arched sash window illuminates the stairwell. The 1850s service wing features 12-pane sashes and windows to its return.

Inside, the fine three-bay open hall has a screens passage to the west, a gallery overhead, and a scissor rafter roof supported by arch-braced collar trusses with upper crown posts to the collar purlin. The roof retains moulded wall plates and chamfered arch braces, with curved wind bracing to the purlins. A Tudor-arched stone hall fireplace features a herringbone brick back. A closed tie-beam truss separates the screens passage from the services, where two stone pointed doorways are found, one blocked. An inscribed stone corbel, “RB/1693”, likely marks the date of a floor insertion or service improvement. The staircase and the remainder of the interior were altered during the 20th century. The 1921 restoration involved removing an inserted floor in the hall and replacing 19th-century sashes with 14th-century style windows, mirroring the design of the surviving front window. The painter Sir William Nicholson resided at the house during the 1920s.