Monkton Farleigh Manor

Monkton Farleigh Manor is a country house dating from the early to mid-18th century, with alterations circa 1870. It stands on the site of a Cluniac priory founded in 1125. The house is built of limestone ashlar, with a hipped stone slate roof and stone stacks. It has a rambling L-shaped plan.

The main front has eight windows and is two stories high. A central glazed Tuscan portico provides access via half-glazed double doors. To the left, there are three 12-pane sash windows with moulded architraves, while to the right, there are three blocked windows and a single sash on a raised ground floor. A moulded string course runs above the ground floor. The first floor features four 12-pane sashes to the left and two sashes with two blocked windows to the right. A moulded eaves cornice with consoles tops the façade, punctuated by two gabled dormers with 2-light casements in the attic.

A wing projects to the left, featuring a half-glazed door to the left of centre, with two sashes in moulded architraves incorporating pulvinated friezes. The first floor of this wing has four sashes in bolection-moulded architraves. The wing’s south gable end includes a pair of bolection-moulded sashes on both the ground and first floors. The rear of the wing displays 19th-century stone cross windows and a pair of pointed lancets in a gabled projection to the right, with blocked openings to the left. An attic gable has a 3-light chamfered mullioned casement. Reset fragments of 12th-century moulding from the original priory are incorporated into the fabric, including a coffin lid with a carved cross.

The east front, and likely a remodelling from around 1870, has seven 12-pane sashes on the raised ground and first floors, all within moulded architraves featuring mask keystones. The sashes are topped with alternating cornices or plain pediments. A basement is evident by the oculi, and channelled quoins lead to a modillioned cornice and a plain blocking course. Three dormers feature alternating segmental or plain pediments with 16-pane sashes. The remains of an orangery are attached to the right, now reduced to three bays. The rear of the main range has 19th-century flat-roofed additions and three blind 18th-century windows to the first floor on the left, with pedimented chimney stacks.

The interior has been extensively remodelled in the 1870s and the 20th century, when the property was divided into three separate dwellings. One flat in the west wing has a moulded cross-beam ceiling with carved bosses. The main house's entrance hall, believed to be of late 16th-century origin, contains a room identified as "Bishop Jewel's Room," which has early 18th-century full panelling. The main house has 6-panelled doors, shuttered windows, marble fireplaces, 19th-century plaster ceiling margins and 19th-century stairs with stick balusters. One bedroom retains 18th-century fielded panelling with fluted pilasters to a round arched niche and an egg and dart moulded ceiling cornice.

The house has a history of occupation by the Seymour family (1737-1804), Wade Brown (builder of Brown’s Folly, 1842-1851), and the Hobhouse family, who have resided there since circa 1870. The east front overlooks a formal avenue.