Edge Barton Manor

Edge Barton Manor is a former manor house with parts dating from as early as the late 13th to early 14th century. Most of the fabric is late 15th and 16th century. The house was reduced in size and altered somewhat in the 18th and 19th centuries, restored around 1935 by Captain Frank Masters, and modernised around 1951. Parts are constructed of coursed blocks of Beerstone ashlar, the rest is local flint and Beerstone rubble. The chimneys are Beerstone, with the older chimneyshafts built of Beerstone ashlar. The roof is slate, though most was originally thatched.

Plan and Development

The house is basically U-plan. The main block faces west and is built down the hillslope with a three-room plan. Uphill at the left (north) end is, or was, a small unheated room, but this has been long filled with rubble up to first floor level. The central room is the largest in the house and has a massive axial stack backing onto the rubble-filled northern room. This is now the dining room but was formerly the hall. Downhill, at the right (south) end, is a parlour with a front projecting lateral stack.

The north wing projects at right angles, and overlaps slightly, the rear of the unheated north room. A great stone newel stair in the angle of these wings gives access only to the upper rooms of the front end room and those of the north wing. The north wing has a two-room plan and is unheated (except for a 20th-century rear lateral stack serving the top floor only). The south wing projects at right angles to the rear of the parlour and has a two-room plan. The small room towards the front has now been united with the parlour. The rear room is heated by an axial stack. In the 20th century the space between the two wings was infilled, providing a new main stair and service rooms.

The historic development of the house is difficult to determine due to the extent of 18th, 19th and 20th century alterations, and it is likely that some of the medieval house has been demolished. The earliest recognisable fabric is found in the south wing, where there appears to be a fragment of the late 13th to early 14th century chapel (perhaps built by Bishop Walter Branscombe). Here the axial stack is blocking a rose window in the west wall of the chapel and there is a jamb of a doorway through the north wall. The chapel was disused long before the end room of the wing was rebuilt on its site in the 19th century.

The dining room and parlour of the main block occupy what was probably a late 15th-century open hall which was heated by an open hearth fire and included a smoke bay. In the mid to late 16th century it was divided into a smaller hall and parlour, floored over, and the fireplaces were inserted. The chambers above were probably the principal chambers. The 16th-century doorway at the rear of the hall could have led to a stair turret up to these chambers.

The north end room of the main block and the north wing are mid to late 16th-century service rooms as now arranged, but there are several blockings and features here which prove that the buildings are older, probably late 15th to early 16th century. Since the building includes no historic kitchen facilities, it is clear that the house was once larger. The large fireplace in the south wing may have been a 16th or 17th-century kitchen fireplace which was adapted in the 19th century, but a full courtyard plan is suspected. New discoveries may alter this interpretation, which must be regarded as provisional. Problems remain, such as whether there was a through or cross passage, why most of the older doors appear to lead out into the courtyard, and whether the front door is in its original position.

Most of the house is now two storeys, but the north wing has attic rooms too.

Exterior

The main west front has an irregular four-window front. Like all the windows, these are 20th-century replacement Beerstone windows with hollow-chamfered mullions containing rectangular panes of leaded glass. A straight join shows between the ashlar of the hall/dining room and the left (north) room. This north end section rises higher and has a gable with shaped kneelers and coping. It also includes a tiny restored lancet at second floor level. The front doorway into the hall (right of centre) is a 20th-century Beerstone Tudor arch. There is an irregular patch of blocking alongside to the left, and over the hall window is an arch-headed relieving arch, perhaps from a 15th-century hall window. The wall top was raised in flint rubble when the roof was changed from thatch to slate.

The hall stack has a circular Beerstone ashlar chimneyshaft. The parlour stack has divided chimneyshafts, one of them ashlar. The south gable end has shaped kneelers and coping. The first floor window here is a large and impressive four-light mullion-and-transom window with hoodmould. A rough butt join shows between the two rooms of the south wing.

The south side of the north wing has a two-window front and shows evidence of two blocked doorways, one of them a large two-centred arch. There are a couple of other blockings which appear to pre-date the late 16th to early 17th century fenestration.

Across the back there is said to have been a dry moat, but only a short section at the end of the main block now remains. In more sheltered places around the house some of the Beerstone quoins are decorated with a herringbone pattern and some have ancient graffiti featuring sailing boats.

Interior

The earliest fabric appears to be in the south wing. The wall between the two rooms here is thought to have been the west wall of the late 13th to early 14th century chapel. The evidence is the remains of a rose window of that date in the former gable; the tracery contains four cusped trefoils. The moulded jamb of an arch-headed doorway in what would have been the north wall may be contemporary. A cusped ogee-headed piscina, which has been reset in the present entrance hall, is probably also of this date.

Around the house there are various blocked or disused architectural fragments, notably fragments of arches in the back of the hall stack and a curious half-engaged shaft on the top floor of the north wing.

The 15th-century hall occupied the present hall/dining room and parlour. It was open to the roof, which still survives. It is five bays. The southernmost bay was originally closed with oak framing providing a smoke bay, indicating that there was originally an open hearth fire against the south wall. This bay is heavily smoke-blackened and the sooting fades out north of it. The next two trusses are arch-braced jointed crucks. The plain side-pegged jointed cruck at the north end of the hall is perhaps 16th century.

This hall was divided, floored and provided with fireplaces in the mid to late 16th century. The hall/dining room has an enormous Beerstone ashlar fireplace with low Tudor arch head and chamfered surround. The three-bay ceiling here and two-bay ceiling of the parlour have chamfered and step-stopped crossbeams.

Above are two master chambers with a smaller unheated room between. These are separated by oak-framed crosswalls, one still containing its original crank-headed doorway. The Beerstone fireplace in the northern chamber has been reduced in size; it had a chamfered surround. The southern chamber was the best chamber on the evidence of the good Beerstone fireplace; it has a Tudor arch with angular corners, a moulded surround and carved shields in the spandrels.

The newel stair in the angle of the north wing is thought to be associated with the mid to late 16th-century refurbishment of the wing, since it ascends to the second floor. Even so, it looks earlier with two-centred arch doorways. The ceiling beams on the ground floor are chamfered with step stops. Those above and those in the end section of the main block are plainly finished and are probably 19th-century replacements. The roof is a 19th-century replacement, although there is a cruck post in the end wall of the main block.

Some of the window embrasures of this wing have interesting early graffiti, particularly those on the first floor. Amongst the many initials (the earliest dated 1610) are representations of sailing ships, animals and an Elizabethan lady.

The end room of the south wing appears to be a complete 19th-century rebuild and has plain carpentry detail. The large kitchen fireplace, however, may be adapted from a 17th-century one.

Setting and History

Edge Barton Manor is attractively positioned on the steep side of a valley with views looking towards the sea. It forms a good group with its farmbuildings and is surrounded by a series of terraces.

The house was the home of the Branscombe family from the 11th to 14th century and the Wadham family from the 14th to late 16th century. It was occupied by tenant farmers from 1618 to 1933.