Manor Cottage

Manor Cottage is a cottage dating from around 1860, which has historically served a variety of purposes, including as a school, master's house, gardener's cottage, estate laundry, and justice room. The building is constructed from local stone and flint rubble with Membury stone ashlar quoins and detailing, featuring stone rubble stacks with 19th and 20th-century brick tops, and a slate roof with crested ridge tiles. The design follows a U-plan, facing east. The central wing, originally the master's house, has a two-room central staircase plan. The right room is characterized by a rear lateral stack, while the left room features an axial stack backing onto a crosswing. Each crosswing projects forward and contains a large single room open to the roof, originally serving as schoolrooms. Around 1880, when the Upottery Primary School was built, this building was repurposed as a gardener's cottage. Subsequently, the right (north) wing was converted into an estate laundry, and the left (south) wing became a private estate justice room. The building is now used as a house. The cottage section is two storeys high, while the wings are single-storey. The style is Tudor Gothic. The exterior presents a symmetrical 1:2:1 window arrangement, featuring two-light stone ashlar windows with chamfered mullions and Tudor-style hoodmoulds, fitted with iron-framed windows and diamond panes of glass. The sides of each wing have two similar windows. Dormer windows with timber casements and cusped bargeboards are present on the first floor of the cottage section. The central doorway of the cottage section is framed by a Tudor arch within an original gabled porch, and each end of the crosswings features a stone Tudor arch doorway with a chamfered surround and carved foliate label stops. Original plank doors with ornate strap hinges are found at all doorways. The wings have gable ends with plain bargeboards and apex finials. The interior was not inspected. This well-preserved and attractive early Victorian building is part of a group of 19th-century structures built by Lord Sidmouth, together forming the village of Upottery.